alt Hacker NewsIt can't be completely self and cross consistent, it's not possible. But that is exactly the goal, we just can't achieve it.
How do you know if you are breaking the law or not if it's inconsistent? And like the sibling points out, any inconsistency can be abused to declare you guilty or innocent on any behavior depending on the partisanship and interests of the judge.
I used to want programmatic law for exactly the reason that I could determine what was illegal so I didn't break the law.
After a while and talking to smart people I became convinced that was impossible; instead, we have a judicial system filled with experts who make heuristic decisions, and (ideally) it's biased towards not finding people guilty of breaking complex laws they couldn't have figured out. Life requires flexible thinking.