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>Sometimes vagueness is a necessary lubricant to get enough agreement on something, but I take your point. Seems to me that a vague law is simply an invalid la
by jdasdf 2y ago
>Sometimes vagueness is a necessary lubricant to get enough agreement on something, but I take your point.
Seems to me that a vague law is simply an invalid law. The rule of law requires the clear knowledge of what exactly is illegal, if that isn't clear then its simply a prospective law that doesn't meet the basic requires to be law.
- TeMPOraL 2y agoThere is no such thing as a law that isn't vague to a degree, because laws are expressed in words and concepts, and those are vague by their nature. Laws can, of course, be vague to a lesser or greater degree. We definitely don't want poetry-level vague laws, but we also don't want to (or can't) have laws expressed in code or as mathematical proofs, because this level of clarity is just computationally intractable wrt. anything relating to real world and real people. At this point, the practical optimum seems to be laws that mostly obvious in vast majority of scenarios, and leaving it to judges to opine on corner cases on an individual basis.
- throwaway2037 2y agoThis is classic HN. "Apply API-style thinking to the Real World." What is reasonable cause for police officer to search someone? Mind you: This single point alone has hundreds of interpretations around the world, across all cultures. Within a single country / culture, there could be many interpretations.