4 ms·

How do you handle the fact that much law is intentionally ambiguous?

• breck 7y ago
  You want to reduce ambiguity as much as possible, but not eliminate it entirely. Still want judges!
  • umanwizard 7y ago
    This is the typical programmer misunderstanding of law. In countries whose legal system is based on that of England (including most of the US), ambiguity is a design goal of statutes, not something meant to be eliminated. Statutes are supposed to be specified in broad strokes and then have the details hashed out by intelligent judges to work in particular circumstances that the legislators didn't envision. And "the law" is not just statutes. Statutes are one small part of the law. Most of the law is the tradition of judicial interpretation of those statutes.
    • breck 7y ago
      > not something meant to be eliminated I said exactly the opposite: "not eliminate it" > Most of the law is the tradition of judicial interpretation of those statutes. This is a very good point. You could simply have judges write decisions in a decision language as well, which is defined just as the law language is defined.
      • umanwizard 7y ago
        Okay fine, let me rephrase. It is not something meant to be reduced.
        • breck 7y ago
          Thanks for the rephrasing. I should rephrase as well. The language I am proposing offers much stronger control over ambiguity. Take the 8th amendment: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." What is an "excessive fine" mean? In the language I am proposing it could be defined as is, or in something like: ... cellType dollarAmount number cellType fine dollarAmount cellType adjustedGrossIncome dollarAmount cellType universalExcessiveFineThreshold description As a percentage of adjustedGrossIncome constant .1 nodeType isExcessiveFine cells adjustedGrossIncome fine trueIf fine / adjustedGrossIncome > universalExcessiveFineThreshold ... So you have more control over ambiguity.
          • umanwizard 7y ago
            But that’s not ambiguity at all — “giving judges leeway according to parameters defined in advance by legislators” is not the same thing as “statutes being ambiguous”.
      • umanwizard 7y ago
        > You could simply have judges write decisions in a decision language as well, which is defined just as the law language is defined. But how could you write the laws in the first place? You can't write them in a language designed to be unambiguous, because they are meant to be imprecise.
        • breck 7y ago
          See basic example code: https://github.com/breck7/jefferson https://github.com/breck7/jefferson There will be some ambiguity introduced via the English language (not a problem since you'd still have judges), but the whole thing can be defined, from concepts like true/false all the way to very complicated concepts, in the same universal syntax/language.
          • empath75 7y ago
            and then you end up with grotesque injustices like mandatory minimum sentences.
            • breck 7y ago
              Huh? You could define mins and maxes into the language, or even clearly and unambiguously leave everything up to the judge. My proposal does not change the laws at all--what people create is up to them. All I propose is a language where the language itself cannot be used by the special interests against the better interests of the people. My language leaves corruption with no place to hide.