This was posted in the IRS thread, and I thought it was interesting as a more general question. In the case of the tax code, its complexity leads to a whole profession of tax people, because no one can understand it without a lot of time on their hands.
But the more worrisome example of complex law would be criminal law. If we can’t understand the law how are we supposed to know when we have violated it. We can’t have a lawyer around all the time to tell us what is allowed.
I think at the very least laws that can send us to jail should be simple enough so we know what is being banned. But it should be complex enough to lessen the ambiguity.
I don’t think anyone today knows all the laws that they could be sued and or prosecuted under. That’s pretty dangerous, as in the case of the Michigan man prosecuted for swearing in front of children.
Law seems to be doing the same thing that programming code does after a long cycle of maintenance. It just gets more and more confusing because of how many hands got in there to change everything.
I’d say the first duty of a law is to make sense to the people who will have to follow it.
In the case of laws that primarily are about organizations in federal government, or other things that everyday citizens don’t have to deal with, then complexity isn’t so bad.
I’d say a law that is so complex that ordinary people, through no fault of their own, are breaking it regularly, is in fact failing in its objective.
But keep in mind the context in which I made my remarks: a thread about a tax protestor argument against the tax code. Everyone pretty much knows that the tax code is complicated. Anyone filling out a form more complex than a 1040EZ knows he’s dealing with a difficult area of the law, and should know he either (i) needs to dedicate some serious time to educate himself, or (ii) needs to hire a tax professional.
This is not an area where people are blindsided by laws they don’t have any reason to know exists – everyone knows April is tax time, and everyone knows that around that time they need to figure out their tax liability.
True, the main laws I worry about are things like the DMCA and the Patriot Act.
Laws that are for common sense stuff like murder are easy to figure out, people just understand them without reading the actual law.
But laws where you can be locked up forever for whatever reason. But some laws are difficult for the opposite reason that they are too vague. Anti trust laws for example.
I’d have to say that laws governing any state of size would have to be complex- simply due to the chance of someone finding a loophole in the ‘plain’ meaning of a law.
It reminds me of something a friend of mine says- whenever you see a stupid disclaimer on a product (i.e. do not stick fingers in fan while blades are in motion), you’re looking at a former lawsuit.
Quite often laws have to double back on themselves, and become well nigh incomprehensible to prevent anyone versed in the law from working out a loophole that defeats the spirit of the law.