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> … prosecutorial discretion is an important safety mechanism to prevent people in odd edge cases … from getting unjustly maimed by the legal apparatus. I agre

> … prosecutorial discretion is an important safety mechanism to prevent people in odd edge cases … from getting unjustly maimed by the legal apparatus. I agree, but there needs to be a mostly-automatic mechanism whereby repeated exercise of this discretion affects the law itself, so that you don't create the opposite problem: people getting unjustly maimed by the legal apparatus because a prosecutor decided to use their "discretion", for whatever reason, to enforce an obsolete law which was still on the books even though it's almost never enforced. (Because legislators apparently have better things to do than repeal old laws which aren't affecting hardly anyone.) A law which consistently goes unenforced should eventually become unenforceable, not remain discretionary. Consider this an application of the estoppel principle: If you choose not to enforce the law in cases A, B, and C, you shouldn't be able to later try to enforce it in case D without showing that there is some substantial difference between D and the first three cases. Mandatory sunset clauses would be another good idea, along with a requirement that the entire bill, along with any external documents incorporated by reference (e.g. building codes), must be read into the official record with a quorum of the legislature present before it can be passed or renewed.

reaperducer 4y ago
Mandatory sunset clauses would be another good idea Some states have a government body that does nothing but review old laws and rules and agencies to see if they're still needed. I don't know how successful they are (for varying definitions of "successful,") but they do exist.
- dane-pgp 4y ago
  To give an example, the UK has passed seventeen "Statute Law (Repeals) Acts"[0] since 1969, the most recent[1] being in 2013, which repealed the whole of 817 Acts of Parliament, and portions of more than 50 others (on the advice of the Law Commission[2]). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_Law_%28Repeals%29_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_Law_%28Repeals%29_Act [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_Law_%28Repeals%29_Act_2013 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_Law_%28Repeals%29_Act_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_Commission_%28England_and_Wales%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_Commission_%28England_and_...
dataflow 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desuetude https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desuetude
mLuby 4y ago
LRU cache but for laws. Strike down "ignorance of the law is no excuse" and see what happens.
yebyen 4y ago
> Mandatory sunset clauses would be another good idea, along with a requirement that the entire bill, along with any external documents incorporated by reference (e.g. building codes), must be read into the official record with a quorum of the legislature present before it can be passed or renewed. This is one of the most sensible things I've heard proposed that will never work. (I'm saying that, if laws are so complicated that no human can learn them well enough to keep themselves in compliance without assistance of a compliance department, or so complicated that even the people who are directly responsible for them cannot be bothered with being made aware of the details and double checking that they still make sense on a somewhat regular basis... then they are too complicated.) I think it will never work because complex things are complex for a reason on the balance, and because we're already "too deep to dig ourselves out of this hole." But in principle I agree wholeheartedly with this idea.
- salawat 4y ago
  Translation: I want it to be easy add new ways to strip another person of their rights without being burdened by having to understand the system as a whole. -A complaint from every developer and legislator ever.
  - yebyen 4y ago
    Where do you get that anyone wants to strip anyone's rights away from within this conversation? We're talking about laws, which generally bind individuals to certain behaviors. Laws do not make rights as far as I'm aware (and IANAL), they are "God-given." At least in US legal tradition, as I understand, the default position of the law is that you are allowed to do anything which does not infringe on anyone else's enumerated rights, and laws can only bind you from doing things which you would otherwise be free to do in the absence of those laws. If the laws which bind our behaviors are so complex they cannot be read aloud in their totality in any practical time period then how is anyone (let alone anyone whose profession is not "the law" or acting in legislature) ever to be expected to understand them as a whole? (Especially when certain laws have traditionally gone unenforced, to borrow from the original context of this thread.) The law should be possible to understand. That is a decent aspirational goal. I'm not sure what you think I meant but it's not what you said.

reaperducer 4y ago

Mandatory sunset clauses would be another good idea Some states have a government body that does nothing but review old laws and rules and agencies to see if they're still needed. I don't know how successful they are (for varying definitions of "successful,") but they do exist.

dane-pgp 4y ago
To give an example, the UK has passed seventeen "Statute Law (Repeals) Acts"[0] since 1969, the most recent[1] being in 2013, which repealed the whole of 817 Acts of Parliament, and portions of more than 50 others (on the advice of the Law Commission[2]). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_Law_%28Repeals%29_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_Law_%28Repeals%29_Act [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_Law_%28Repeals%29_Act_2013 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_Law_%28Repeals%29_Act_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_Commission_%28England_and_Wales%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_Commission_%28England_and_...

dataflow 4y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desuetude https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desuetude

mLuby 4y ago

LRU cache but for laws. Strike down "ignorance of the law is no excuse" and see what happens.

yebyen 4y ago

> Mandatory sunset clauses would be another good idea, along with a requirement that the entire bill, along with any external documents incorporated by reference (e.g. building codes), must be read into the official record with a quorum of the legislature present before it can be passed or renewed. This is one of the most sensible things I've heard proposed that will never work. (I'm saying that, if laws are so complicated that no human can learn them well enough to keep themselves in compliance without assistance of a compliance department, or so complicated that even the people who are directly responsible for them cannot be bothered with being made aware of the details and double checking that they still make sense on a somewhat regular basis... then they are too complicated.) I think it will never work because complex things are complex for a reason on the balance, and because we're already "too deep to dig ourselves out of this hole." But in principle I agree wholeheartedly with this idea.

salawat 4y ago
Translation: I want it to be easy add new ways to strip another person of their rights without being burdened by having to understand the system as a whole. -A complaint from every developer and legislator ever.
- yebyen 4y ago
  Where do you get that anyone wants to strip anyone's rights away from within this conversation? We're talking about laws, which generally bind individuals to certain behaviors. Laws do not make rights as far as I'm aware (and IANAL), they are "God-given." At least in US legal tradition, as I understand, the default position of the law is that you are allowed to do anything which does not infringe on anyone else's enumerated rights, and laws can only bind you from doing things which you would otherwise be free to do in the absence of those laws. If the laws which bind our behaviors are so complex they cannot be read aloud in their totality in any practical time period then how is anyone (let alone anyone whose profession is not "the law" or acting in legislature) ever to be expected to understand them as a whole? (Especially when certain laws have traditionally gone unenforced, to borrow from the original context of this thread.) The law should be possible to understand. That is a decent aspirational goal. I'm not sure what you think I meant but it's not what you said.