logoalt Hacker News

rubberstamp • yesterday at 7:02 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

Any government side stepping law by interpreting law in any different manner than how it is written is breaking that law. In my opinion laws should not be interpreted at all and parliament should make any bug fixes rather than allowing courts or administration to interpret laws in any other way other than how its written down in the law.


Replies

mrandish • yesterday at 10:14 PM

> laws should not be interpreted at all

I get why that may reflexively seem right but such a blanket proscription would go off the rails and lead to unintended consequences you definitely don't want. It's simply not possible to write a law both specific enough yet broad enough to cover all cases. You or I can read a plainly worded law and think "There's no way this can be misconstrued, gamed or subverted" and, sadly, we'd be wrong.

> parliament should make any bug fixes rather than allowing courts or administration to interpret laws in any other way other than how its written down in the law.

It's certainly possible to theory-craft completely new and different governance, legal and justice systems from scratch which have different sets of constraints and trade-offs, but then it's a long conversation and unrelated to the existing U.S. system. If we limit ourselves to starting from what the existing U.S. system is and proposing modifications which are actually both constitutionally and logistically possible, then forcing all interpretation and clarification to be passed by congress would require monthly revisions, immediately breaking an already dysfunctional congressional system.

I think it's worth mentioning that in the U.S. system, judges interpreting application of laws passed by elected representatives is a feature not a bug. The U.S. system was designed to be adaptive and self-gating, so each of the three branches of the government have built-in checks and balances on the other two. Setting aside current politics, on a long time-horizon like the last ~50 years, I think the U.S. justice system, as imperfect as it is, is actually serving its designed purpose far better than the other two.

➕ show 1 reply
parineum • today at 1:59 AM

All laws are interpreted.

➕ show 1 reply