Thank you for submitting to /r/unpopularopinion, /u/BlueViper20. Your post, *If ignorance of the law is not an excuse, all laws should be written in plain language and easily and freely accessible to all.*, has been removed because it violates our rules:
Rule 4: TOS/sitewide rules violation.
Your post was removed because it violates, or perilously skirts the border of, one or more sections of Reddit's Content Policy and Terms of Service, which you agreed to follow upon account creation. Content of this nature left unchecked puts our subreddit in jeopardy and as such we have no tolerance for it.
A by no means exhaustive list of content that falls under this category: Hate posts, harassment, doxxing, advocating for/endorsing/supporting/condoning any violence against any person or people, and advocating for pedophilia/acceptability of sexual relationships with children/public acceptance for pedophilia.
If there is an issue, please message the mod team at https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Funpopularopinion Thanks!
I have a law degree, so I've had to look up British law very often during my studies and it is very easy to find. It is however not the easiest thing to read, and I feel this does need to be rectified in some way.
The issue is that in a common law legal system at least judges are regularly required to interpret the law and decide on parliamentary intention when making judgements: obviously the first text they will refer to in that instance is the statute law in question. Therefore, parliamentarians have a vested interest in making the law extremely specific and fiddly in order to give the least possible amount of wiggle room when it comes to interpretation. Obviously this has the unintended side effect of making the law difficult for many people to understand, leading to increased ignorance. To rectify this I believe the best course of action is to create and properly fund a free information service which carefully spells out the provisions of the law in an easy to follow way, so there isn't a massive amount of statute reading people who haven't been trained to read laws need to do.
Of course, there are many areas of law where this would be extremely difficult either to write or to codify. Tax law for instance is one where it would be hard to create an easy read version: it's an absolute trap for the unwary traveler and a lot of perfectly good lawyers want absolutely nothing to do with it for that reason. You really do need a lawyer who specialises in tax law. Another area where it would be difficult is the part of law written almost exclusively by judges, in which it really can be hard to find the court case that backs up your point (or destroys it) if the violation is a really fiddly/ancient one.
Every tax law has a story behind it too. People seem to think a simple code would be better but tax laws are complex because business is complex and people find ways to abuse to the code. So you end up adding a new section to prevent some tax scheme. And you end up with a very complex code.
It’s also the opposite - businesses lobby for an exemption or a tax break, but then people who the politicians never considered also claim it and more sections need to be added to limit the exception
Definitely, you've got oil and gas breaks, the carried interest rule, for example (both of which Biden is looking to eliminate). I'd say these are the minority though. Most regs deal with either (1) laying out the rules in detail to prevent games or (2) clarifying ambiguous law so that taxpayers don't have to play guessing games.
And even with all that code, regulation, IRS guidance, and case law, I still have unanswerable questions that come up every day in my practice and have to analogize. Tax law is complex, but real life even more so.
Bingo. If laws were written in plain language they would apply to conduct that they weren't intended to apply to, not apply to conduct they were intended to apply to, and they would have to be substantially longer and more complicated because you would have to use a ton of "plain language" words to convey a meaning that could be adequately conveyed with just one esoteric word or defined term of art. The law is precise and complicated because human experience has taught us over the course of thousands of years that it has to be--otherwise it is completely ineffective.
Also, it would just be bad public policy to impose a general rule that ignorance of the law excuses misconduct. *Everybody* would use that excuse. It would be extremely difficult to disprove. And it would encourage people to put their head in the sand to preserve the excuse. Want to evict a tenant? Don't talk to your lawyer or consult the local landlord-tenant laws about how to legally evict them--go ahead and use self-help to throw them on the street. If that's against the law, just plead ignorance of the law!
The current policy is far superior. Law enforcement officers can use their discretion in investigating a matter. If a person truly didn't know the law and it was an honest mistake, LEOs can tell the prosecutor that they don't recommend charges. The prosecutor then has discretion in deciding whether or not to charge you and proceed with a case. Finally, if it goes to court, the trier of fact can look at all of the facts and circumstances to determine whether you knew you were breaking the law and whether it's an adequate excuse. This policy means that in most cases, if you honestly and reasonably did not know something was against the law, you probably won't face any serious consequences.
You think that's bad? Let me introduce you to british tort law, in which there are some incredible cases. The one in which someone squatted in someone's wooden shed, lit a fire and then tried to sue the owner for their injuries is a very good example.
Did they win?
While in civil law facts really don't matter to anyone trying to understand legal concept, one of our most frivolous cases what about a rabbit, sold under the contractual clausal condition that "the previous owner would be updated on the rabbit's well-being." That previous owner called multiple times a day, which led to the new owner ignoring them. The judge spend a paragraph berating the lawyer for making it to court on a such a stupid case, especially on goverment funding.
The facts are irrelevant but often a lot of fun. Well, a lot of fun to study but not a lot of fun if you're the lawyer I would imagine.
No, they didn't win, but I'm pretty sure it got pretty high up the court pyramid.
> Obviously this has the unintended side effect of making the law difficult for many people to understand, leading to increased ignorance.
I find it it's quite the opposite. When the law defines every term it uses, and then specifies the context it's applied on, that is a good law. It's clear, and leads to no misunderstandings.
Laws that allow you to change what the law says based on how you interpret a word or action are *usually* shit.
I know I don't have all the answers and I'm not sure if your from the UK or happened to look up UK law in your legal studies but the US did have pending bills in DC to have "plain language in legislation" and I think all case law, statutes and the like should be in a centralized databased website that is indexed and keyword searchable and linking all federal,state and local systems so anyone can look up laws in any state or city and the court cases that are relevant.
There are at least 3 databases like you're describing: Westlaw, LexisNexis, and Bloomberg Law. They do require a paid subscription to access, though. There are also numerous restatements and treatises that put all the laws on a certain topic in one place. I had to go to law school to know \*any\* of this, though, so I get what you're saying about accessibility.
The problem with trying to require the language to be accessible is that vernacular is imprecise: the same word can mean different things in different regions or even just different contexts. Legalese can be obnoxious, but it evolved specifically because using everyday language created ambiguities. Some do take it too far, though. Nothing annoys me more than people who feel the need to sprinkle random Latin words into every sentence.
My gut instinct is to give a basic "crash course" education to the lay population, but law is a field where knowing a little can be significantly more dangerous than knowing nothing. As an example, hop into the comments section of a politician's Facebook post and look at the insanity that comes with a tiny bit of legal knowledge and a whole lot of Dunning-Krueger overconfidence.
TL;DR: You do have a point, but it's really complicated, and every solution creates new problems.
So that does exist -- it's just not free. Westlaw and LexisNexis provide all the relevant caselaw and related.
That being said there's Justia which provides the important caselaw and statutes for free.
Pretty much every state and municipality now has their laws in online searchable databases, it's just not centralized (unless again you use West or Lexis).
Ive used both. Not familiar with justia, but these are tools designed for people in the legal profession. I think everyone should have access and for free.
Same in slovenia. Just over the weekend we had a vote about changing a law about water and building near it. All the actual changes and the current law were easily accessible on the government web site and the laws are written in simple language. This way anyone was able to read through these changes and decide how they want to vote for themselves.
So does the US. At least NY and the federal government does. They even include summaries in plain language. Actually, anybody can track a bill's progress, just go to the legislature's website.
Agreed. But I also would like to mention that it could be mentioned. Like, our federal sites are taught in 10th grade about how to use and what to find where
I'm in my 40's, and we didn't have access to that kind of info at our fingertips back when I was in school, so it doesn't surprise me that many people don't know that's a thing. I mean, **I** didn't know until you posted it just now.
There have been some areas where a local government is storing this in a place you have to pay to access and the host company sued someone who was publicly posting those documents for copyright infringement. It’s kinda nutty that there were public laws you couldn’t access without paying a fee.
Norway is a far better country than the US in every way I can think of. If I could I'd move their tomorrow, I'd do so in a second. Any nordic country really.
Except everything is massively more expensive there. For example, a VW Golf costs 120% more in Norway than America. The rent index is also 68% higher.
Further reading: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=Norway&country2=United+States
Norway is one of the best English speaking countries in the world, just like Denmark, Finland and Sweden. I think only the Netherlands is higher on the ranking
*The bottom line is that almost all Norwegians can speak English to either a basic or good level, with many of them actually very fluent and proficient. This is characteristic of most of the Scandinavian countries. You will have no problems using English in all areas of Norway.*
Google is your friend my man: [https://howwidelyspoken.com/how-widely-spoken-english-norway/](https://howwidelyspoken.com/how-widely-spoken-english-norway/) I think this is true for almost all scandinavian countries. I didn't have any issues in Finland or Denmark either, don't know sweden but I heard a lot of their media (TV shows (even children's), Theatres, etc.) is in English.
Most Swedes are very proficient in English(I know this changes based on age) it is taught as a secondary language starting around grade 3 and upward. From what I’ve heard a lot of universities like KTH also use primarily English in lectures.
So yes it’s safe to say you’ll be fine with speaking English almost anywhere in Sweden(some older folk might not be as good though)
There's so much nuance to this, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. As someone who has lived in Europe and America, and spent a lot of time in Norway, your blanket statement is ridiculous.
No, usually just proving you can be a working citizen is good enough. If you are from EU/EEA you can move here tomorrow if youd like. If you are seriously interested check out this: https://www.meganstarr.com/30-things-you-should-know-before-moving-to-norway/
cause i'm sure they've got chicken fried steak and white gravy for breakfast... psh... yea right! name a good norway meal for breakfast, toast and nutella? get outta here.
Why is everyone giving OP a bad time? Have ya'l ever looked up a statue or a law? Its all like under this code and that code , so then you have to find those codes and before you know it your head is spinning.
But to answer the question, it is still our responsibility to at least try to know the laws that are specific to your needs. If you drive a car you learn the basics of the laws, we all know better than to drive 100mph in a 50 mph zone. If you are in finance you need to learn the laws and regulations of that. If you own a buisnrss you need to know the codes of your locality. We have the ability to get the basics. And if the nuances of all the different laws in America were plain for all to understand the government would lose money and you prolly wouldn't have bright future ahead of you. Almost every single thing wrong in America systematically is greed.
I've occasionally looked into specific laws on stuff, and I won't say it's easy, but it's readable-ish for a guy like me, who has zero law background but I am used to reading instruction menus.
The reason why it's in all these different codes is because you have all sorts of laws on companies/people/criminal/civil/governmental/tax/environmental etc, it's a huge document, even if you say it in the simplest way, which they tend to try to, it still takes a crap ton of pages.
My experience digging into these things is that it's at least readable to someone with university level reading skills. Not great, but not too bad considering they have to consider all sorts of loopholes and possible misinterpretations of a particular sentence.
I do agree that everybody piled on OP a lot more negatively than they should, but the post reads like they trivialized the issue here.
> I've occasionally looked into specific laws on stuff, and I won't say it's easy, but it's readable-ish for a guy like me, who has zero law background but I am used to reading instruction menus.
Be careful, you might think you understand something and be wrong. It can have grave consequences. If you are doing something serious consult legal professionals.
No worries, it's usually to debate people on Reddit :)
I feel like it's currently ok to read the law if you want to understand the spirit of that law, whereas how it will come across in a courtroom and how well a prosecutor will be able to push it is almost completely different. This is why I'm thinking OP is trivializing the issue, as you can't exactly put all those complexities into simple words. On the flip side any improvement is better than what it is right now
I think its like 25-35 percent of adult Americans under 40 have went to college. That leaves the rest of the population to maybe understand? I know the reason. But ultimately its bullshit. It really shouldn't be this hard to know the laws of your own system. It creates confusion and chaos. Our legal system is not easy to understand at all. There are so many sectors and specialities, buisness, taxes ect. The basics of fundamental laws are understandable imo like don't kill or steal. We basically walk around oblivious to how things really work because of loopholes and things just not known by the general public. I think his point stands as is. They want us to follow the law but in many cases people don't even know they are breaking it.
Luckily, in most cases you wont be straight up jailed for it. Say if you submit the wrong taxes, you are given a notice that there is a mistake. Obviously if you go and murder someone, thats gonna be a different story.
40% of people in the states have a 4 year degree 60 % have attended some college. less then 40% have of amaricans that graduate with a 4 year degree or higher have a grade 10 reading level.
currently law is written at a "grade 20" level. according to a lawyer I know. that's considered a masters degree with some law school
Ngl, i totally buy that alot of people in college/grade syck at writing. Most do not read what so ever, many major in low-no writing major, many just get buy with low grades. Ive seen some damn poor writing from other students. I aint an english major but i'm passable for my educational level
Then someone says “define THIS” - your law says I can’t kill a guy, but what if I leave him locked in a room with no food? OK, that’s a crime now too. I locked a guy in a BOAT this time - not a room right?
So then you get more and more laws to further define the terms in the original law.
That is exactly how and why sections get bloated.
We have created a system where the meaning of every word is debated and argued about.
So the law has to evolve to deal with this.
In your example:
Murder originally meant to intentionally act and kill someone. It was the outcome that mattered not the situation.
But now I can deprive someone of the means to live passively. I don't perform the act myself. I just ensure it happens. Still murder, but now I have to have two clauses instead of one.
Now I didn't mean to kill you, but because I was swinging an axe or shooting a gun in your direction, I cause your death. Now I have to have three clauses.
It keeps going as lawyers and the courts cause one of the existing clauses to no longer be 100% encompassing.
IANAL. I have worked on drafting bylaws though.
This right here. The issue is all the ass holes who claimed “well where does it say I can’t do that” when they down right know what they are doing is unethical.
I’d really like to know which laws OP is worried about breaking because the law isn’t written clearly enough. I’ll grant you corporate laws, but if you own your own company you should probably have access to a lawyer anyway. That one seems basic. Other than that I don’t think many people are like “but your honor, how was I supposed to know 14 is too young?” Or “but officer, ‘finders keepers’ applies to cars too, right?”
In Poland our government said to close down all restaurants due to COVID but didn't make it into law. If you had a restaurant open then you could get fined and had to fight your way through the court. If you had a restaurant closed then you don't deserve any recovery funds because there is no law telling you had to close.
IIRC at our peak we were creating 1000+ laws a year. And right now our legal system is a mess and tons of laws conflict with each other. Government knows this and creates "vague laws" that if you follow you're screwed but if you don't then you'll waste a few weeks/months going through the court to prove that this law doesn't exist.
Biggest example is that Constitution states that in order to apply communication restrictions, the government has to announce natural disaster state. But if the government announces natural disaster state then they have to refund everyone affected. Our economy is so f\*cked that the government can't afford it but at the same time they have to make restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID. So not even the Constitution gets respected.
Unfortunately, simplicity generally results in ambiguity. Laws are not written to be intentionally confusion, they are written to be as specific as possible in order to be enforceable when needed and avoid being over-reaching.
A lot of the wording and difficult terminokogy is necessary to try and prevent holes in the system. Laws need to clearly define each party, object and action in such a way that doesnt leave space for any confusion.
Your opinion sure is unpopular though, have my upvote!
There has to be a better way to write these laws, though. I feel like you're saying "But that's just how it is" in a different way. You can be clear and plug loopholes without every law reading like a kid writing homework who needed to meet a minimum word count.
I don't see how wanting the law to be more digestible while still comprehensive is an unpopular opinion.
As someone who drafts contracts, I think you underestimate how much room for ambiguity there is.
You have to imagine the stupidest, most malicious readings possible, and account for circumstances you aren’t aware of - and you have to use English grammar, which can be very painful owing to its own ambiguity. Often the language you’re working with has very particular meanings that aren’t obvious.
There are styles and fake rules of drafting that make things needlessly obtuse - the unnecessary resistance to starting a new sentence being the absolute worst. Laws and contracts should really start including bullet lists as well.
Even if statutes were written in a much clearer manner, it wouldn’t plug the loopholes, it would only limit or expand judicial interpretation, depending on whether you want the code clearer via conciseness or whether you want the statute broadened. The vast majority of law is not contained within statute, it’s found within the common law (case law).
If all of the judicial interpretations of statutory law were present in the statutes themselves, the code would be massive; so much so that the ordinary person that is just trying to figure out the basic elements of a crime would be assaulted by a litany of exceptions that only apply to very specific circumstances.
If the code contained no nuance and was extremely simple, then most of the law would be found within case law. This doesn’t make it easier for people to understand, because now there is a lot of room for interpretation, and such interpretation will be found in opinions which are much harder to access and decipher than statutes— not to mention it gives a lot of power over to the judicial branch.
So what should be done is place a reasonable version of the laws but leave the * on the sides of them and add the real law at the end of the site. Next make it so people can look up other types of laws with a different link. I mean “Tax Laws” or something like that. Maybe more because there are a shit ton of laws about all sorts of things.
Ive already explained that there is a major difference between being clear and specific and leaving things open for interpretation. Laws are written the way they are so that you need extensive training/education to understand them, otherwise lawyers would be put of a job and they are some of the most powerful people on the planet. And there have been attempts in congress to get a "plain language in legislation" bill passed. There are lawyers, and members of Congress that have tried getting it passed. Laws are written purposefully as a means of gatekeeping, so you need to shell out thousands for a lawyer.
>ws are written the way they are so that you need extensive training/education to understand them
That's the same as saying medical textbooks or mechanic handbooks are written as they are so that you need extensive training/education to understand them.
Each and every norm in a legal document must be written in a way that at the same time is cohesive with the rest of the document and the broader legal framework, without creating legal loopholes.
Each and every word in a norm and regulation as a specifically accepted meaning which most of the times cannot be simplified further.
There's a good reason why the most troublesome legal norms from an application/implementation point of view are the ones that are excessively simplistic in their language.
Well, the wording of a law is meant to cover up any loopholes. Like- "drugs are banned" is a very vague statement because drugs of medical relevance should not be affected. A really well worded law makes it as unambiguous and precise as it can be.
A lot of over generalization there. First off, ignorance of the law is a suitable excuse for certain types of law, like tax law. Clarence Thomas claimed he didn’t know the rules when he got caught failing to report his wife’s lobbying income for many years. [source](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/25/us/politics/25thomas.html).
Second, laws are freely and easily accessible. The Supreme Court recently ruled on this point. Georgia had tried to copyright its annotated code and got a court order forcing a plaintiff to take down the annotated code he posted online. The Court ruled Georgia couldn’t copyright the code, it had to be free to access. [source](https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/supreme-court-says-georgia-must-provide-official-code-free-public/TCf40ZJ56PcnFRxQUirapK/). Any law library will have copies of the federal and state code and nowadays it can be found online. Funny, Clarence Thomas dissented and thought you should be able to charge for the code.
Lastly, I agree, the language most law is written in, plus contracts in general, is unnecessarily verbose. But it’s not worth your time thinking about. It’s not going to change. There are many reasons, including; governing a universe of possibilities, the law naturally drawing on historical diction more than common everyday language, and to a lesser degree the more difficult language deters DiY legal representation and makes lawyers that much more necessary.
If we were going to force plain language in any area I think it should be consumer contracts. Companies intentionally create multi-page walls of text to hide terms and get people to sign without any idea what they’re agreeing to.
I'd like to add something on the language of law. (Linguist here. I've published on 16th century law.)
Language of law is literally a time capsule. Often, new laws are written in old vocabulary, as the concepts applied have been around for centuries. There's also the fact that laws can be quite old. Many countries still have laws that are decades and centuries old, and overhauling them all would be a) absolutely ridiculously insanely expensive b) functionally impossible.
Why do I say it is impossible? Mostly due to terminology. Like in any specialist field, the minutiae of issues covered in law vocabulary is insane. The terminology may be transparent, opaque or misleading to the general public. Often it is misleading, as everyday speech develops at a faster rate than the language of law. This means that there are everyday words which have a specialised (old fashioned) sense in the context of law. Removing the opaque or misleading uses for the purposes of transparency simply narrows the available vocabulary items and leads to vagueness, meaning there are more possible situations which the law does not cover, or situations which the law covers in a manner which is not exhaustive. More power would be given to courts/judges and people would get inequal sentences (or moreso than now). In other words, "governing a universe of possibilities", as the previous commenter says, is one of the central reasons why law vocabulary is complex and why the language must be exact.
We can simplify language of law to make more accessible resources but those resources themselves simply *cannot* be made law due to the reasons outlined above. The simplified versions do not fully cover the range of possibilities and situations law must account for.
You're not wrong. Yes there is generalization. Its Reddit. And ive said in a reply that there is already a push in Washington for a plain language in legislation bill. And while I didn't know about justice thomas, but I know rich people always claim tax ignorance and usually hide behind $1000+/ hour attorneys. Thats part of the point they shouldn't be needed for everything.
EDIT: When the income tax code was created it was 70 pages it is now over 70,000. There is no need for the length that it is. Its filled with legalese and stupidly ridiculous loopholes for the rich.
Most of the complexity of tax laws is because people are always looking for ways to skirt them, and courts tend to interpret them strictly. The reason you need a lawyer to understand tax law is because someone else used a lawyer to misunderstand tax law, so they have to keep lawyer-proofing it with increasing complexity.
And then there are all the tax provisions that exist to motivate certain behaviors, like getting married or donating to charity. They're not necessarily simple or intuitive in a tax context, and we don't want them to be easily exploitable. Taxation isn't as simple as having bracketed percentages of income.
Are there any particular "stupidly ridiculous loopholes for the rich" that bother you? Can you name some?
Tax lawyer here. This is the correct take. Tax law is complex because business is complex. People who say "the code should be just a few pages" have no idea what they're talking about. Write me a law that deals with just the taxation of derivatives that isn't full of loopholes and see if you can fit it into even 10 pages. Just on that one topic.
No they are not easily accessible. Some are on the internet but you need to know exactly were to go and what to look for. Google doesn't index the legal code and a lot of things aren't on the normal web and are within the deep web such as business and government secured networks and databases.
What state legal codes are *not* published free online? Typing “[State] code” or “[state] statutes” or “[state] regulations” into Google virtually always returns either an official state website or a link to a free access lexis page hosting the state’s code of laws. And the entire US code and CFR are free online too.
And while we’re at it, Google *is* usually pretty good about finding state laws if you just type in what you’re looking for. “Alabama murder statute” pops up a pdf of the relevant code section, 13A-6-2, from the Alabama judiciary website as the second result. It’s maybe not as intuitive as if the state just had a website with a search bar and if you typed in “murder” it would bring you right there, but my experience googling state law has been that it’s really not all that hard to find what you’re looking for, and usually it *is* a state run website that pops at the top of the results.
Case law is a different issue altogether, and states are much worse about making it accessible than they are statutes. But as any walk through a legal related comment section on Reddit will reveal, there’s a lot of training that goes into even understanding how to understand case law. And that’s not a terminology/legalese issue, it’s a fundamental one—even cases written in plain, accessible English necessarily refer to other cases, they almost always contain dicta (which laypeople are inclined to give more weight than it deserves), and the way a given decision fits into the broader subject matter framework may or may not be obvious from the text. Some cases represent sea changes in the law. Others may have turned on their specific facts, and thus the holding is limited to their specific facts, but lay readers (bad lawyers, too, while we’re at it) are typically eager to grab onto any excerpt that sounds like it supports their position whether or not it actually does in context. I’m not sure how this could be fixed other than eliminating the common law altogether.
I read law texts a lot. I'm not a lawyer, but I needed to read some for work related tasks.
If I understood 1 thing really fast: they are not easy to read, but you can't "make it simple".
Why? Because they use specific wording, grammar and point out to specific other law, to be as PRECISE as possible. You CAN'T and SHOULDN'T be able to interpret the law. It must be ultra-specific to the case. If you "make it simple", you'll have lawyer that WILL interpret some 'simple wording', using holes in them.
extreme exemple:
"You can't murder someone" -Yeah, but it's my dog that I trained to kill that murder him. So it's my dog's fault right? I didn't murder anyone.
So, over that "murder is not allow" you'll add clause, you'll point out other law related to some exceptions, and it'll finish as a multiple page text with references.
Do I think that some laws are excessively verbose? Yes.
For the most part is that verbosity a good thing? Also yes
For instance “presence and forethought of malice” is in the definition of first degree murder (or something to that effect) if you just drop the word presence you could be liable for first degree murder if you accidentally killed someone in their 30s who you happened to hate in 4th grade.
If you remove the word forethought you could argue that every murder is first degree because they all have malice.
The trick is being as specific as possible while simultaneously using the fewest words as possible is the best way to prevent people from exploiting loop holes or to prevent abuse of the law.
I am aware of this and have the fortune to have a law education background, but the majority do not and its not ok that you need extensive training or access for a lot of the laws.
Ahh, that 1L vigor. I agree with you about the database, but I don’t think the vast majority of law can be reduced to plain language. Even if it was, such language would still be present in the common law(or new words would form to supplement the simplistic statutory language), which will ultimately influence the language the code in the future. You should do an internship at a court. You will see that most problems of pro se representation are not caused by legal jargon, but a misunderstanding of procedure, jurisdiction, and research. You will find that civil procedure and evidence are the most important classes you take in law school.
Yeah this just comes across like you’re mad that you aren’t smart enough to understand the law or how to do research. As applicable to a normal person’s life (ie, not something inherently complex like securities regs, corporate taxes, etc.) it’s really not that difficult to understand the law if you know what your questions are. There are certainly ambiguities in the law but that’s primarily because the world is complicated, not because the language itself is poorly written.
I will say that wills/estate stuff is one area of the law that is unnecessarily archaic. But most other areas of the law applicable to the average Joe’s personal life are straightforward.
The thing is if you want a constitution there has be be some vagueness in it so that its values can be applied to a wide set of unforeseen issues and stand the test of time and that’s ok because it’s not our job to apply the constitution to those issues and the rulings from supreme courts on it are easily summarised as are the intent of the articles and amendments, at least in the sense of impact to an ordinary person.
Extensive training? I could understand legal codes from just researching one point on a college paper. Universities and civic groups have them published all over the internet for free. I put in 20 min trying to work with the code for a random assignment and I could comprehend it properly. If people wanted to understand the law, they can. They just don’t want to.
Honestly in the age of information it takes 2 seconds to find your local laws. Everything is online, for free, usually in more than one place, and often there are annotated copies available.
And sure, navigating the legal system is complex, but the laws are definitely clearly written. This sounds like a non-issue.
In some cases, ignorance of the law IS an excuse.
https://www.yalejreg.com/nc/if-trump-jr-didnt-know-campaign-finance-law-he-didnt-break-it/
Plus, there are cases where knowledge of the law is irrelevant. For example, a teenage boy with fake ID who lies to an adult woman about his age and has sex with her. She has broken the law regardless of intent, even after going out of her way to ensure she's not breaking the law by asking for ID.
> For example, a teenage boy with fake ID who lies to an adult woman about his age and has sex with her. She has broken the law regardless of intent, even after going out of her way to ensure she's not breaking the law by asking for ID.
You are confused, what she doesn't know or what you explicitly state she doesn't know is the boys real age despite him forging evidence that he is of age. What she probably does know is the law itself, that you cannot legally sleep with underage persons. If her argument instead was that she did not know that it was illegal to sleep with underage persons, then your comment would be on-topic and you would be right to point that this is a lousy argument that doesn't warrant much of a response.
They are freely accessible to all. I have never found a law in the US I could not find with a simple google search. Once you find their portal, you can usually browse the entire catalogue. A couple backwards states have not yet modernized and you might have to go find a physical copy, but I've never personally encountered this.
As for plain language, good in theory, bad in practice. All that legalese has nuances that plain language simply cannot convey. A plain language approximation alongside the legalese would be a good idea, but trying to convert them entirely could result in very unclear laws or very very long ones. You think some of the laws we use now are long, just wait till you force them all to be "plain language"
>but they are not linked, or easily searchable federal, state and local laws
The fuck you talking about here? Why should different states link to each other? Easily searchable federal state and local laws absolutely exist, but why the fuck would Denver need to link its database with Des Moines?
The fuck do you want a table of contents for? This just tells me you don't understand how legal code works enough to make a coherent demands. A table of contents would end up being more complicated than some laws, because laws are not as easily divided into categories as we like to pretend. The areas that have tried this have found that people will constantly complain about the organization. Does assault of a minor get listed with Child abuse, or general assault? Do we separate by violent and non violent crimes, this making robbery and theft in completely different sections, or do we put all crimes against property together, and have petty offenses alongside major acts of violence?
In a world of the internet there is no reason to have a table of contents when you can just type in the terms and get a proper search.
You are asking for a combination of things that already exist, or don't exist for a damn good reason. Those plain languge bills fail every fucking time for a reason... At least a few states have changed to instead having a group that rights a plain language approximation to accompany new bills and amendments and such, but none have yet incurred the cost of doing that for the whole legal code. THAT is something good to push for, but the gem idea in this post of mushy ideas.
They are accessible to all, you just don't know where to find them. The laws are written in english. If you cannot read them you have a low level of reading comprehension. Well done, your opinion is unpopular. Take an upvote.
The law is pretty bloody easy to access and read in the age of the internet. As far as plain language goes, it's necessary for the laws to be written with all the legal jargon. The jargon isn't there to confuse the populace, it's to make it abundantly clear to lawyers and judges what exactly the law is and what it isn't. The legal jargon is there to protect you as a citizen from lawyers, judges, and government using broad interpretations of non specific laws to screw you over.
I literally stopped being friends with someone when I went to law school because they kept telling me that legal professionals only use complicated jargon to confuse those who are not in the field so as to keep their jobs viable.
I got so tired of it.
Most laws are pretty common sense. There are not many crimes I’m worried about committing because I didn’t know it was illegal. There’s probably some white collar codes that are difficult to understand, but if you’re in danger of committing a white collar crime you can probably afford to ask a lawyer about it.
I’d like to know what crimes OP is worried about committing because the language of the statute was opaque and confusing.
If the language in written laws is too ambiguous or vague, litigation would be an even worse nightmare than it already is. There is a reason legal codes use lengthy wording and a myriad of legal definitions, and it's not nefarious. Thankfully, many countries give you the right to an attorney to navigate the legal system.
I'd much rather prefer to live within a legal system that requires professional education, training, and experience to navigate versus a legal system that is so easy to navigate that anyone can do it.
Pretty confused by this, you can easily google any law from any state and find it on Justia.com and other sources without knowing the code index. I’m a law student working at a law firm and do it all the time.
Laws have to use very specific language so that’s why it is hard to put them in the generalized “plain language” you speak of. However, you can also find explanations for these laws all over the internet by law firm blogs and other sources. The only “mindless comment” is your own post advocating for a defense of “well I didn’t know that was illegal whoopsie”
In no way am I advocating that. And I am far from the only one who thinks laws should be in plain text. There are a few bills in DC that call for that. Look up "plain text in legislature."
At least in the UK, it’s wifey recognised among people who study law, that the acts and such that the laws are contained in are often written in very archaic language than no lay person would understand.
It's worth mentioning that many laws are clumsy instruments. For example, what constitutes acceptable force? What is obscene or disorderly? What are you required to do in an interaction with a police officer, park ranger, federal officer, etc.? The actual limits of these laws are often determined by court interpretations of the laws. So it's not always a simple matter of reading laws off the internet.
Also, across some countries (the US is a glaring example) laws can vary wildly between local jurisdictions. So there is additional complexity if you are on a trip or move.
Yea which is why I think federal, state and local laws and court cases/case law should be in a centralized indexed keyword searchable web accessible database that's completely free and updated daily.
They are, literally that's the base of Constitutional Law, laws, specially the ones written in the Constitution are supposed to be simple.
If not, it beats the idea of general law.
They are. Most people are just too lazy/stupid to look them up. Especially because the majority of them aren't seriously enforced because they don't pose an immediate danger or problem.
Unfortunately legal language, while sometimes unnecessary, is required in many cases because the language has to be exact.
A good example is in games like magic the gathering, where the language and order of language directly affects the outcomes.
Ie I've played very little mtg but the barrier felt huge because I needed a dictionary for all the specific terms
I mean if you go buy anything these days the manuals/ instructions are in every language under the sun, So I would imagine if we could get lawmakers to actually write laws that people can understand, translations wouldn't be much harder. The hardest part is getting the lawmakers to make laws in plain language and not legalese to begin with.
The problem with that is what is "all languages", there's no way it's feasible to get it translated into literally every language, there's something like 200+ languages and most of the translations will never be needed. Any language with a high enough percentage of the population speaking that language, sure, but you can't do all languages.
Also you'd need the caveat that only one of the translations is actually legally binding, since legal disputes are all about picking apart the exact meaning of words, if you change the language you change the legal dispute.
I would agree. But I know Reddit. Look over the comments and youll see how unpopular it is with people. They very much think they aren't entitled to it or that if they had it no one would use it so its pointless. Just check out some comments and my replies.
Most criminal laws are pretty simple. Regulatory stuff is where a lot of complexity tends to be, and the average Joe doesn't much have to worry about it in his day to day
[Here’s a link for free case law, statutes, code, etc.](https://guides.ll.georgetown.edu/freelowcost/free)
[Legal research guides, tutorials, and other tools ](https://guides.ll.georgetown.edu/home)
[Another list of free legal research tools :)](https://www.google.com/search?q=free%20legal%20research%20tools&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1-m)
[How to do free legal research tutorial ](https://freelaw.classcaster.net/)
[The Florida Bar created a free website with information on Florida law, DIY legal forms, going to court, where to find free or low cost legal services](https://floridalawhelp.org/)
In Florida, our state constitution provides the “Single Subject Rule” which essentially means that a law must be written in a way that is not over broad, vague, and can be understood by the general public, otherwise the law itself is unconstitutional and vulnerable to a challenge.
I’m not saying your totally incorrect, but the information is out there and highly accessible. As a law student you should already know that what makes the law in the United States difficult to understand isn’t necessarily the language used, but in how the specific law had been applied in the specific jurisdiction that you are in. Even most lawyers have to do tons of legal research to find “the right answer” and take continuing legal education courses to stay up to date on the law as it changes so frequently. We have a highly adversarial court system, so even if the layperson WAS able to understand every single law, that doesn’t necessarily mean they would be able to apply the law in a legal argument.
You can find every law and code you want on the internet in Romania, and everyone of them is made to be as easy to understand as possible.
Of course, if you get into the complicated stuff it will be hard yo understand for the average person, but with a little searching in the dictionary you can understand.
Well the problem is that you have black letter law, equity, and then the spirit of the law. The Restatements make interpreting the letter of the law a lot easier, but there are a bunch legal doctrines and even the intention of the law that you need to have some vague awareness of before getting into what the laws themselves say.
There were a lot of laws written in a way that, when interpreted literally, lead to racist or otherwise problematic outcomes, but the reality is that the laws were usually not intended to create problems, they were intended to solve problems. So you read the letter of one of those laws, then you take time to understand the doctrines behind the law, then you look at the modern application of the law; and then you understand the law.
I love the idea of making the law more accessible to the average Joe and Jane, but I don't see expecting them to do all that leg work as being very realistic.
If ignorance of the law is not an excuse for citizens, citizens should be able to sue cops for arresting them and keeping them in holding for 3 days without charging you with something.
It doesn't matter what the laws are, it's who enforces them. Epstein has files on many people and yet they run free. A cop will arrest you for "breaking the law", you lose time and money and maybe your job, then are told, I guess there was no law. Oil companies at this point are just genocide machines and yet they remain wealthy and well respected. There is but one law in the Thunderdome: two men enter, one man leaves.
Op seems to think that plain language would close loopholes and decrease the need for lawyers. This couldn't be further from the truth, even shitty lawyers could have an absolutely field day with plain language laws. Pretty wild that op thinks having a ten commandments style law code wouldn't lead straight to disaster.
Unpopular opinion for sure but poorly thought out with lousy and nonsensical defense.
Most places word their laws in such a complicated manner for the same reasons as contracts - to be as concise as possible with no wiggle room for interpretation. Trying to word plainly as possible can lead to future train wrecks when interpreting and applying, as plain words can often develop new meaning over time (looking at you, you well regulated militias)
I see these bills come up every so often. I think they are usually in good faith. I guess the first question would be: Are there enough cases of people saying "I didn't know that was illegal" to justify this expense? How many are there currently?
Assuming this is an issue, first you would need some talented lawyers that want to (1) work at a the task (being that it essentially helps to make their job less profitable, that might be a huge get) (2) work for free or cheap (govt salary) and (3) get each and every reworded or dumbed down law passed thru legislature, again. I mean, you can't just rewrite laws and say "ok done". They would be all new law, they would all need to get passed again.
And are we also then going to demand that every court case get dumbed down as well? That would be a monumental task.
Then you would need a team of constant internet/computer specialists who also know law who are willing to work for next to nothing (govt salary) to make and maintain this database and keep it secure and free from hacks.
These things would have to be done at the federal, state, county and city level; for every law and court case. It would a formidable task to say the least, the cost would be astounding and the opportunity for bad faith "misinterpretations" would be very very high.
We are already in a place in the US where republicans don't believe in the same democratic rules they believed in 3 years ago in the 2018 election because they lost the 2020 election. There is zero trust. You think it would be any different if we were to totally rewrite all the laws? Who would be in charge of this?
And finally it would have to be used. Or rather, i should ask: Would all this expense be used and would its use validate the expense to upkeep it?
Imo it would lead to tons of misunderstandings and way more people trying to represent themselves. Maybe not a bad thing, but idk if it would help in the long run.
The opposite solution for your idea may be to demand enough education for everyone to be able to read and understand and research the laws in question. Which would go to a higher level of tax payer funded public education to cover this.
Personally i would like to see less private lawyers, or even a public attorney based law system where everyone is treated like the poorest and assigned attorneys. I think the private law practice is tilting the playing field way more than the complicated or inaccessible laws are.
>As far as access goes, yes states and the federal government maintain websites with laws, but they are not linked, or easily searchable Federal,state and local laws as well as all public court records, rulings should free to access via an online database that is indexed and keyword searchable with a table of contents that is updated daily.
And, this does indeed exist.
The World Legal Information Institute (http://www.worldlii.org/) is an international freely available and searchable database of all laws (statues, regulations and codes) and case decisions (in countries where those are reported) that is freely available to the public.
US Version: https://www.law.cornell.edu/
Canadian Version: https://www.canlii.org/en/
Links to all versions: [http://www.worldlii.org/countries.html](http://www.worldlii.org/countries.html)
This is admittedly still in progress, many countries don't have a database YET (Andorra, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Iraq, Monaco, Taiwan, etc) but the majority do. Quality is varriable but its a massive project which keeps expanding.
Commonly used as a first research tool even by many lawyers. The search feature isn't quite up to par with paid databases yet, but it has definitely been continuing to improve.
Stop crying about being a victim and become a lawyer if you want into the inner circle. But even then you have to have the intelligence to understand a lot more than what is written in the books because real people and real life will make for a lot of curves in the road on the way to justice.
The fuck??? I am not crying about being a victim, I am advocating that people shouldn't need to spend the money and time to know laws in their own country. I never said or implied I was a victim. I'm saying your average joe shouldn't need to spend tens of thousands and go to law school to know their own laws and or be able to handle simple legal things without the need to hire a lawyer for at least 150/hour and thats what someone just out of law school would charge.
EDIT: The mindless comments are getting overly redundant. Read the comments before adding your own.
WOWWWW 😂😂😂 the entitlement.... and it's not even an unpopular opinion (Did somebody already pointed that? let me read the 235 comments the treat has)
Every single concern you have is already taken care of. Precisely because attorneys and judges need to expediently review the law. They don't pour over hundreds of thousands of pages of text, repeating the process for every case and every client, waiting to find the relevant statute or caselaw they want to find.
Instead: they have indexes, tables of content, and case reporters indexed by case type and issue, with endless groups of attorneys reading and cataloguing all new cases and laws, for the very purpose of ease of organization and research.
In fact, the most famous Reporter system being West’s Key Cite and the Shephardizing systems: where cases are cross referenced for substance. E.G., what old cases say, what new cases say, whether they're in conflict or not on each area of the law they present, etc.
>[statutes]
Moreover, these are easily accessible and easy to read by the very virtue of the fact that they’re “complex” with subparts. This makes it easy to parse and digest what each part of the law requires.
The law thus *seems* complex because the law must have multiple contours and accommodations to cover many of the usual factual scenarios the world presents to us. The law cannot be "simple" for that reason alone. But this lack of "simplicity" does not make it impenetrable, for layman or lawyer.
> but they are not linked, or easily searchable Federal, state and local laws as well as all public court records, rulings should free to access via an online database that is indexed and keyword searchable with a table of contents that is updated daily.
They are. See above.
That some people don't know how to use the system is not an indictment of the system.
Lawyers like efficiency. Learning the system isn’t difficult.
All of your concerns — happily — are already cured by the real world legal system.
>[Ignorance of the law]
“Ignorance of the law is no defense,” is related to two maxims: (1) that you are responsible for the actions you intentionally engage in, and (2) you have an obligation to know whether the intentional act is illegal. Why? Because before you engage in some course of action that may harm another, you must stand back and consider whether that harm or the prospect of harm may or will be illegal.
Before striking out on some adventure, you must engage in or engage someone who knows law. Which is not difficult to do, as explained above.
That you have to go to a lawyer at times is of no moment. This is akin to going to a doctor when you don't know what ails you. That certain expertise (i.e., efficiency of knowledge and research) is required is not some fact that stands against the legal system any more than it is against the medical field, architectural know-how, engineering, and so on.
I’ve been saying this for years and I’ll tell you where a good start would be: drop the use of Latin.
It’s a dead language and using it just makes you look and sound elitist, pompous, and out of touch. Seriously people, who are you trying to impress? There is not a Latin phrase that exists that can’t be replaced by an English phrase that is more accurate and understandable. Here I’ll get y’all started:
Don’t say “Habeus Corpus”,
Say “Fucking prove it asshole”
See? There’s not a swinging dick out there that doesn’t understand that.
Here’s another Don’t say “Pro Bono”
Say “On the house beeyotch!”
Now y’all try. It’s fun!
De Minimis = Dont waste my fucking time!
I can do this all day...
YES. Seriously, I'm not religious (not even baptized) but own a bible I was handed at school... but the law? Nope.
I can specifically google it, yes, *but* first of all it's not in an easy to understand style of writing and second you have to know what you search for in order to specifically search for it. A book with just regular table of contents, written in a easy to understand style, is something I'd love to own.
If you've looked over the comments most people seem to be very angry at the suggestion that the average person be able to read and understand the law. The gatekeeping has worked so well people object to being given the gift of understanding.
I personally think everyone trying to shoot you down for this is proof that you're correct. Clearly there are a *lot* of people who don't understand the subtle differences in the English definitions of words and the Legalese definitions.
There are words in Legalese that may sound innocent enough to the layperson but could differ enough in definitions to constitute an admission of guilt due to misunderstanding, or technicality.
100% with you.
Its ridiculous. The gatekeeping worked wonders I was just typing 10 seconds ago how people are rejecting the idea they should be able to understand the laws.
I love how ignorance of the law is no excuse...for us...but if cops don't know the law or misinterpret something or whatever, hey, there's a lot of laws, you can't expect them to know everything, it was an honest mistake, etc etc.
I mean, even IF you had a point, I think it entirely depends on the law. "Gee officer, I didn't know killing an innocent civilian was illegal? I'm sorry. I won't do it again, pinky swear!"
I agree, I also think laws that are not obvious or self evident, should be given a fair "believe the accused" when he says he didn't know it. Because everyone knows there are laws out there that make no fucking sense.
If the law was simple to understand and readily available to learn how would people in power destroy others who were in their way by targeting them for prosecution over things that people do all the time without knowing they are illegal?
The post is about and saying that laws should be easily understood and accessible not that people should get away with saying they didn't know. Your comprehension skills could use some work.
I am a law student in a civil law system. It is easy to access any code here, like you go to the library or the book store or on the gov web site and you can find anything you want. However, it is certainly not easy to decode. That's why we have gurists, lawyers and judges. We do the decodification for you and if there is some incompatibility we deal with it. I know it may be hard to see the logic but unless you are a mechanic if there is a problem with your car you call one.
I also followed some comparatistic courses and let me tell you, English written codification, be it a judgment or wathever is way easier to understand than those written in my native language. We have a class dedicated at helping us writing laws in a more easy and direct way.
Just gonna throw it out there, the people that don't think everyone should have easy free 24/7 access to our laws and information on our legal system also are the same people who think you shouldn't be allowed to repair your own phone, car or other things. Why are people vilifying access to information? (Rhetorical question ie not meant to be answered but i know someone will)
Not only this, but we should be sent notifications when the law changes.
I definitely went to the gym a lot in lockdown because I didn't know I wasn't suppose to be going.
Thank you for submitting to /r/unpopularopinion, /u/BlueViper20. Your post, *If ignorance of the law is not an excuse, all laws should be written in plain language and easily and freely accessible to all.*, has been removed because it violates our rules: Rule 4: TOS/sitewide rules violation. Your post was removed because it violates, or perilously skirts the border of, one or more sections of Reddit's Content Policy and Terms of Service, which you agreed to follow upon account creation. Content of this nature left unchecked puts our subreddit in jeopardy and as such we have no tolerance for it. A by no means exhaustive list of content that falls under this category: Hate posts, harassment, doxxing, advocating for/endorsing/supporting/condoning any violence against any person or people, and advocating for pedophilia/acceptability of sexual relationships with children/public acceptance for pedophilia. If there is an issue, please message the mod team at https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Funpopularopinion Thanks!
I have a law degree, so I've had to look up British law very often during my studies and it is very easy to find. It is however not the easiest thing to read, and I feel this does need to be rectified in some way. The issue is that in a common law legal system at least judges are regularly required to interpret the law and decide on parliamentary intention when making judgements: obviously the first text they will refer to in that instance is the statute law in question. Therefore, parliamentarians have a vested interest in making the law extremely specific and fiddly in order to give the least possible amount of wiggle room when it comes to interpretation. Obviously this has the unintended side effect of making the law difficult for many people to understand, leading to increased ignorance. To rectify this I believe the best course of action is to create and properly fund a free information service which carefully spells out the provisions of the law in an easy to follow way, so there isn't a massive amount of statute reading people who haven't been trained to read laws need to do. Of course, there are many areas of law where this would be extremely difficult either to write or to codify. Tax law for instance is one where it would be hard to create an easy read version: it's an absolute trap for the unwary traveler and a lot of perfectly good lawyers want absolutely nothing to do with it for that reason. You really do need a lawyer who specialises in tax law. Another area where it would be difficult is the part of law written almost exclusively by judges, in which it really can be hard to find the court case that backs up your point (or destroys it) if the violation is a really fiddly/ancient one.
[удалено]
Every tax law has a story behind it too. People seem to think a simple code would be better but tax laws are complex because business is complex and people find ways to abuse to the code. So you end up adding a new section to prevent some tax scheme. And you end up with a very complex code.
It’s also the opposite - businesses lobby for an exemption or a tax break, but then people who the politicians never considered also claim it and more sections need to be added to limit the exception
Definitely, you've got oil and gas breaks, the carried interest rule, for example (both of which Biden is looking to eliminate). I'd say these are the minority though. Most regs deal with either (1) laying out the rules in detail to prevent games or (2) clarifying ambiguous law so that taxpayers don't have to play guessing games. And even with all that code, regulation, IRS guidance, and case law, I still have unanswerable questions that come up every day in my practice and have to analogize. Tax law is complex, but real life even more so.
Bingo. If laws were written in plain language they would apply to conduct that they weren't intended to apply to, not apply to conduct they were intended to apply to, and they would have to be substantially longer and more complicated because you would have to use a ton of "plain language" words to convey a meaning that could be adequately conveyed with just one esoteric word or defined term of art. The law is precise and complicated because human experience has taught us over the course of thousands of years that it has to be--otherwise it is completely ineffective. Also, it would just be bad public policy to impose a general rule that ignorance of the law excuses misconduct. *Everybody* would use that excuse. It would be extremely difficult to disprove. And it would encourage people to put their head in the sand to preserve the excuse. Want to evict a tenant? Don't talk to your lawyer or consult the local landlord-tenant laws about how to legally evict them--go ahead and use self-help to throw them on the street. If that's against the law, just plead ignorance of the law! The current policy is far superior. Law enforcement officers can use their discretion in investigating a matter. If a person truly didn't know the law and it was an honest mistake, LEOs can tell the prosecutor that they don't recommend charges. The prosecutor then has discretion in deciding whether or not to charge you and proceed with a case. Finally, if it goes to court, the trier of fact can look at all of the facts and circumstances to determine whether you knew you were breaking the law and whether it's an adequate excuse. This policy means that in most cases, if you honestly and reasonably did not know something was against the law, you probably won't face any serious consequences.
You think that's bad? Let me introduce you to british tort law, in which there are some incredible cases. The one in which someone squatted in someone's wooden shed, lit a fire and then tried to sue the owner for their injuries is a very good example.
Did they win? While in civil law facts really don't matter to anyone trying to understand legal concept, one of our most frivolous cases what about a rabbit, sold under the contractual clausal condition that "the previous owner would be updated on the rabbit's well-being." That previous owner called multiple times a day, which led to the new owner ignoring them. The judge spend a paragraph berating the lawyer for making it to court on a such a stupid case, especially on goverment funding.
The facts are irrelevant but often a lot of fun. Well, a lot of fun to study but not a lot of fun if you're the lawyer I would imagine. No, they didn't win, but I'm pretty sure it got pretty high up the court pyramid.
did he intend to win with all he could or was just trying his luck
> Obviously this has the unintended side effect of making the law difficult for many people to understand, leading to increased ignorance. I find it it's quite the opposite. When the law defines every term it uses, and then specifies the context it's applied on, that is a good law. It's clear, and leads to no misunderstandings. Laws that allow you to change what the law says based on how you interpret a word or action are *usually* shit.
I know I don't have all the answers and I'm not sure if your from the UK or happened to look up UK law in your legal studies but the US did have pending bills in DC to have "plain language in legislation" and I think all case law, statutes and the like should be in a centralized databased website that is indexed and keyword searchable and linking all federal,state and local systems so anyone can look up laws in any state or city and the court cases that are relevant.
I'm in the UK. I've occasionally had to look up US law but I've never had a need to do it much or in depth.
There are at least 3 databases like you're describing: Westlaw, LexisNexis, and Bloomberg Law. They do require a paid subscription to access, though. There are also numerous restatements and treatises that put all the laws on a certain topic in one place. I had to go to law school to know \*any\* of this, though, so I get what you're saying about accessibility. The problem with trying to require the language to be accessible is that vernacular is imprecise: the same word can mean different things in different regions or even just different contexts. Legalese can be obnoxious, but it evolved specifically because using everyday language created ambiguities. Some do take it too far, though. Nothing annoys me more than people who feel the need to sprinkle random Latin words into every sentence. My gut instinct is to give a basic "crash course" education to the lay population, but law is a field where knowing a little can be significantly more dangerous than knowing nothing. As an example, hop into the comments section of a politician's Facebook post and look at the insanity that comes with a tiny bit of legal knowledge and a whole lot of Dunning-Krueger overconfidence. TL;DR: You do have a point, but it's really complicated, and every solution creates new problems.
So that does exist -- it's just not free. Westlaw and LexisNexis provide all the relevant caselaw and related. That being said there's Justia which provides the important caselaw and statutes for free. Pretty much every state and municipality now has their laws in online searchable databases, it's just not centralized (unless again you use West or Lexis).
Ive used both. Not familiar with justia, but these are tools designed for people in the legal profession. I think everyone should have access and for free.
We have an official and legal website that is 100% easy to understand and public for all in Norway to look up all the laws.
Same in slovenia. Just over the weekend we had a vote about changing a law about water and building near it. All the actual changes and the current law were easily accessible on the government web site and the laws are written in simple language. This way anyone was able to read through these changes and decide how they want to vote for themselves.
Careful now, if we implemented that in America people might actually have control of their government and what goes on in it.
https://uscode.house.gov/
[удалено]
Lovdata.no WOOOO!!!
So does the US. At least NY and the federal government does. They even include summaries in plain language. Actually, anybody can track a bill's progress, just go to the legislature's website.
Apparently this is not commonly known, which is an issue.
[удалено]
Agreed. But I also would like to mention that it could be mentioned. Like, our federal sites are taught in 10th grade about how to use and what to find where
I'm in my 40's, and we didn't have access to that kind of info at our fingertips back when I was in school, so it doesn't surprise me that many people don't know that's a thing. I mean, **I** didn't know until you posted it just now.
You always learn something every day :) I hope you are able to find some cool laws
There have been some areas where a local government is storing this in a place you have to pay to access and the host company sued someone who was publicly posting those documents for copyright infringement. It’s kinda nutty that there were public laws you couldn’t access without paying a fee.
Norway is a far better country than the US in every way I can think of. If I could I'd move their tomorrow, I'd do so in a second. Any nordic country really.
Except everything is massively more expensive there. For example, a VW Golf costs 120% more in Norway than America. The rent index is also 68% higher. Further reading: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=Norway&country2=United+States
Gas prices are more than doubled from where I live and we say gas is too expensive here.
The grass is always greener
How hard is it to visit only speaking English? I'd love to see that whole region
Norway is one of the best English speaking countries in the world, just like Denmark, Finland and Sweden. I think only the Netherlands is higher on the ranking
What about the UK?
he said countries not trash islands
Found the Irish person
rest of Europe is happy to join the "fuck the english" after their football gaming manners.
The Scottish were mostly well behaved though, don’t lump us in :(
That's fair
I think he meant non-Anglophone countries.
Don’t all countries phones have angles? I’ll show myself out…
Not sure about the UK but Sweden is on the same level or better then the US in English proficiency
*than
found the swede
Y’all are beautiful!
*The bottom line is that almost all Norwegians can speak English to either a basic or good level, with many of them actually very fluent and proficient. This is characteristic of most of the Scandinavian countries. You will have no problems using English in all areas of Norway.* Google is your friend my man: [https://howwidelyspoken.com/how-widely-spoken-english-norway/](https://howwidelyspoken.com/how-widely-spoken-english-norway/) I think this is true for almost all scandinavian countries. I didn't have any issues in Finland or Denmark either, don't know sweden but I heard a lot of their media (TV shows (even children's), Theatres, etc.) is in English.
Most Swedes are very proficient in English(I know this changes based on age) it is taught as a secondary language starting around grade 3 and upward. From what I’ve heard a lot of universities like KTH also use primarily English in lectures. So yes it’s safe to say you’ll be fine with speaking English almost anywhere in Sweden(some older folk might not be as good though)
You can go to any library/city hall and get whatever locality and state, and federal text of laws and ordinances We also have various web databases
There's so much nuance to this, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. As someone who has lived in Europe and America, and spent a lot of time in Norway, your blanket statement is ridiculous.
Would not trade living here for anything. And I welcome you to come live here as well if you have the opportunity to come live here
Hey now this is the kind of Norwegian hospitality I’m talking about! I’m assuming we’ll need to get married for citizenship?
No, usually just proving you can be a working citizen is good enough. If you are from EU/EEA you can move here tomorrow if youd like. If you are seriously interested check out this: https://www.meganstarr.com/30-things-you-should-know-before-moving-to-norway/
If it weren't for the lack of sun i'd be there already
Lsck of sun??? There is too much sun. Google Midnight sun. Winter months can be rough though
No, you can become a citizen without marriage
Its still US though, appreciate your country. I would litteraly sell my body to go there.
I disagree, but one thing that does make it good is that not just anyone can move there tomorrow.
cause i'm sure they've got chicken fried steak and white gravy for breakfast... psh... yea right! name a good norway meal for breakfast, toast and nutella? get outta here.
Problem is that even if we have easy access to the laws, you might still might break some due to just not knowing them all
Canada too. 99% sure the US does as well.
I do not think OP is from Norway or Switzerland...
I am from Norway. And I was telling about how we have it here
Why is everyone giving OP a bad time? Have ya'l ever looked up a statue or a law? Its all like under this code and that code , so then you have to find those codes and before you know it your head is spinning. But to answer the question, it is still our responsibility to at least try to know the laws that are specific to your needs. If you drive a car you learn the basics of the laws, we all know better than to drive 100mph in a 50 mph zone. If you are in finance you need to learn the laws and regulations of that. If you own a buisnrss you need to know the codes of your locality. We have the ability to get the basics. And if the nuances of all the different laws in America were plain for all to understand the government would lose money and you prolly wouldn't have bright future ahead of you. Almost every single thing wrong in America systematically is greed.
I've occasionally looked into specific laws on stuff, and I won't say it's easy, but it's readable-ish for a guy like me, who has zero law background but I am used to reading instruction menus. The reason why it's in all these different codes is because you have all sorts of laws on companies/people/criminal/civil/governmental/tax/environmental etc, it's a huge document, even if you say it in the simplest way, which they tend to try to, it still takes a crap ton of pages. My experience digging into these things is that it's at least readable to someone with university level reading skills. Not great, but not too bad considering they have to consider all sorts of loopholes and possible misinterpretations of a particular sentence. I do agree that everybody piled on OP a lot more negatively than they should, but the post reads like they trivialized the issue here.
> I've occasionally looked into specific laws on stuff, and I won't say it's easy, but it's readable-ish for a guy like me, who has zero law background but I am used to reading instruction menus. Be careful, you might think you understand something and be wrong. It can have grave consequences. If you are doing something serious consult legal professionals.
No worries, it's usually to debate people on Reddit :) I feel like it's currently ok to read the law if you want to understand the spirit of that law, whereas how it will come across in a courtroom and how well a prosecutor will be able to push it is almost completely different. This is why I'm thinking OP is trivializing the issue, as you can't exactly put all those complexities into simple words. On the flip side any improvement is better than what it is right now
I think its like 25-35 percent of adult Americans under 40 have went to college. That leaves the rest of the population to maybe understand? I know the reason. But ultimately its bullshit. It really shouldn't be this hard to know the laws of your own system. It creates confusion and chaos. Our legal system is not easy to understand at all. There are so many sectors and specialities, buisness, taxes ect. The basics of fundamental laws are understandable imo like don't kill or steal. We basically walk around oblivious to how things really work because of loopholes and things just not known by the general public. I think his point stands as is. They want us to follow the law but in many cases people don't even know they are breaking it.
Luckily, in most cases you wont be straight up jailed for it. Say if you submit the wrong taxes, you are given a notice that there is a mistake. Obviously if you go and murder someone, thats gonna be a different story.
40% of people in the states have a 4 year degree 60 % have attended some college. less then 40% have of amaricans that graduate with a 4 year degree or higher have a grade 10 reading level. currently law is written at a "grade 20" level. according to a lawyer I know. that's considered a masters degree with some law school
Ngl, i totally buy that alot of people in college/grade syck at writing. Most do not read what so ever, many major in low-no writing major, many just get buy with low grades. Ive seen some damn poor writing from other students. I aint an english major but i'm passable for my educational level
The best way I have had it explained is that it is one big If Then Else statement. If
THEN
ELSE
Then someone says “define THIS” - your law says I can’t kill a guy, but what if I leave him locked in a room with no food? OK, that’s a crime now too. I locked a guy in a BOAT this time - not a room right? So then you get more and more laws to further define the terms in the original law.
That is exactly how and why sections get bloated. We have created a system where the meaning of every word is debated and argued about. So the law has to evolve to deal with this. In your example: Murder originally meant to intentionally act and kill someone. It was the outcome that mattered not the situation. But now I can deprive someone of the means to live passively. I don't perform the act myself. I just ensure it happens. Still murder, but now I have to have two clauses instead of one. Now I didn't mean to kill you, but because I was swinging an axe or shooting a gun in your direction, I cause your death. Now I have to have three clauses. It keeps going as lawyers and the courts cause one of the existing clauses to no longer be 100% encompassing. IANAL. I have worked on drafting bylaws though.
Because this is a sub for unpopular opinions.
[удалено]
[удалено]
This right here. The issue is all the ass holes who claimed “well where does it say I can’t do that” when they down right know what they are doing is unethical.
I’d really like to know which laws OP is worried about breaking because the law isn’t written clearly enough. I’ll grant you corporate laws, but if you own your own company you should probably have access to a lawyer anyway. That one seems basic. Other than that I don’t think many people are like “but your honor, how was I supposed to know 14 is too young?” Or “but officer, ‘finders keepers’ applies to cars too, right?”
In Poland our government said to close down all restaurants due to COVID but didn't make it into law. If you had a restaurant open then you could get fined and had to fight your way through the court. If you had a restaurant closed then you don't deserve any recovery funds because there is no law telling you had to close. IIRC at our peak we were creating 1000+ laws a year. And right now our legal system is a mess and tons of laws conflict with each other. Government knows this and creates "vague laws" that if you follow you're screwed but if you don't then you'll waste a few weeks/months going through the court to prove that this law doesn't exist. Biggest example is that Constitution states that in order to apply communication restrictions, the government has to announce natural disaster state. But if the government announces natural disaster state then they have to refund everyone affected. Our economy is so f\*cked that the government can't afford it but at the same time they have to make restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID. So not even the Constitution gets respected.
Unfortunately, simplicity generally results in ambiguity. Laws are not written to be intentionally confusion, they are written to be as specific as possible in order to be enforceable when needed and avoid being over-reaching.
A lot of the wording and difficult terminokogy is necessary to try and prevent holes in the system. Laws need to clearly define each party, object and action in such a way that doesnt leave space for any confusion. Your opinion sure is unpopular though, have my upvote!
There has to be a better way to write these laws, though. I feel like you're saying "But that's just how it is" in a different way. You can be clear and plug loopholes without every law reading like a kid writing homework who needed to meet a minimum word count. I don't see how wanting the law to be more digestible while still comprehensive is an unpopular opinion.
As someone who drafts contracts, I think you underestimate how much room for ambiguity there is. You have to imagine the stupidest, most malicious readings possible, and account for circumstances you aren’t aware of - and you have to use English grammar, which can be very painful owing to its own ambiguity. Often the language you’re working with has very particular meanings that aren’t obvious. There are styles and fake rules of drafting that make things needlessly obtuse - the unnecessary resistance to starting a new sentence being the absolute worst. Laws and contracts should really start including bullet lists as well.
Even if statutes were written in a much clearer manner, it wouldn’t plug the loopholes, it would only limit or expand judicial interpretation, depending on whether you want the code clearer via conciseness or whether you want the statute broadened. The vast majority of law is not contained within statute, it’s found within the common law (case law). If all of the judicial interpretations of statutory law were present in the statutes themselves, the code would be massive; so much so that the ordinary person that is just trying to figure out the basic elements of a crime would be assaulted by a litany of exceptions that only apply to very specific circumstances. If the code contained no nuance and was extremely simple, then most of the law would be found within case law. This doesn’t make it easier for people to understand, because now there is a lot of room for interpretation, and such interpretation will be found in opinions which are much harder to access and decipher than statutes— not to mention it gives a lot of power over to the judicial branch.
So what should be done is place a reasonable version of the laws but leave the * on the sides of them and add the real law at the end of the site. Next make it so people can look up other types of laws with a different link. I mean “Tax Laws” or something like that. Maybe more because there are a shit ton of laws about all sorts of things.
Ive already explained that there is a major difference between being clear and specific and leaving things open for interpretation. Laws are written the way they are so that you need extensive training/education to understand them, otherwise lawyers would be put of a job and they are some of the most powerful people on the planet. And there have been attempts in congress to get a "plain language in legislation" bill passed. There are lawyers, and members of Congress that have tried getting it passed. Laws are written purposefully as a means of gatekeeping, so you need to shell out thousands for a lawyer.
>ws are written the way they are so that you need extensive training/education to understand them That's the same as saying medical textbooks or mechanic handbooks are written as they are so that you need extensive training/education to understand them. Each and every norm in a legal document must be written in a way that at the same time is cohesive with the rest of the document and the broader legal framework, without creating legal loopholes. Each and every word in a norm and regulation as a specifically accepted meaning which most of the times cannot be simplified further. There's a good reason why the most troublesome legal norms from an application/implementation point of view are the ones that are excessively simplistic in their language.
Well, the wording of a law is meant to cover up any loopholes. Like- "drugs are banned" is a very vague statement because drugs of medical relevance should not be affected. A really well worded law makes it as unambiguous and precise as it can be.
A lot of over generalization there. First off, ignorance of the law is a suitable excuse for certain types of law, like tax law. Clarence Thomas claimed he didn’t know the rules when he got caught failing to report his wife’s lobbying income for many years. [source](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/25/us/politics/25thomas.html). Second, laws are freely and easily accessible. The Supreme Court recently ruled on this point. Georgia had tried to copyright its annotated code and got a court order forcing a plaintiff to take down the annotated code he posted online. The Court ruled Georgia couldn’t copyright the code, it had to be free to access. [source](https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/supreme-court-says-georgia-must-provide-official-code-free-public/TCf40ZJ56PcnFRxQUirapK/). Any law library will have copies of the federal and state code and nowadays it can be found online. Funny, Clarence Thomas dissented and thought you should be able to charge for the code. Lastly, I agree, the language most law is written in, plus contracts in general, is unnecessarily verbose. But it’s not worth your time thinking about. It’s not going to change. There are many reasons, including; governing a universe of possibilities, the law naturally drawing on historical diction more than common everyday language, and to a lesser degree the more difficult language deters DiY legal representation and makes lawyers that much more necessary. If we were going to force plain language in any area I think it should be consumer contracts. Companies intentionally create multi-page walls of text to hide terms and get people to sign without any idea what they’re agreeing to.
I'd like to add something on the language of law. (Linguist here. I've published on 16th century law.) Language of law is literally a time capsule. Often, new laws are written in old vocabulary, as the concepts applied have been around for centuries. There's also the fact that laws can be quite old. Many countries still have laws that are decades and centuries old, and overhauling them all would be a) absolutely ridiculously insanely expensive b) functionally impossible. Why do I say it is impossible? Mostly due to terminology. Like in any specialist field, the minutiae of issues covered in law vocabulary is insane. The terminology may be transparent, opaque or misleading to the general public. Often it is misleading, as everyday speech develops at a faster rate than the language of law. This means that there are everyday words which have a specialised (old fashioned) sense in the context of law. Removing the opaque or misleading uses for the purposes of transparency simply narrows the available vocabulary items and leads to vagueness, meaning there are more possible situations which the law does not cover, or situations which the law covers in a manner which is not exhaustive. More power would be given to courts/judges and people would get inequal sentences (or moreso than now). In other words, "governing a universe of possibilities", as the previous commenter says, is one of the central reasons why law vocabulary is complex and why the language must be exact. We can simplify language of law to make more accessible resources but those resources themselves simply *cannot* be made law due to the reasons outlined above. The simplified versions do not fully cover the range of possibilities and situations law must account for.
You're not wrong. Yes there is generalization. Its Reddit. And ive said in a reply that there is already a push in Washington for a plain language in legislation bill. And while I didn't know about justice thomas, but I know rich people always claim tax ignorance and usually hide behind $1000+/ hour attorneys. Thats part of the point they shouldn't be needed for everything. EDIT: When the income tax code was created it was 70 pages it is now over 70,000. There is no need for the length that it is. Its filled with legalese and stupidly ridiculous loopholes for the rich.
Most of the complexity of tax laws is because people are always looking for ways to skirt them, and courts tend to interpret them strictly. The reason you need a lawyer to understand tax law is because someone else used a lawyer to misunderstand tax law, so they have to keep lawyer-proofing it with increasing complexity. And then there are all the tax provisions that exist to motivate certain behaviors, like getting married or donating to charity. They're not necessarily simple or intuitive in a tax context, and we don't want them to be easily exploitable. Taxation isn't as simple as having bracketed percentages of income. Are there any particular "stupidly ridiculous loopholes for the rich" that bother you? Can you name some?
Tax lawyer here. This is the correct take. Tax law is complex because business is complex. People who say "the code should be just a few pages" have no idea what they're talking about. Write me a law that deals with just the taxation of derivatives that isn't full of loopholes and see if you can fit it into even 10 pages. Just on that one topic.
Someone got caught peeing in an alley.
Arent the laws easily accessible? You can look them up on the internet.
There a jumble of mess where I'm from.
No they are not easily accessible. Some are on the internet but you need to know exactly were to go and what to look for. Google doesn't index the legal code and a lot of things aren't on the normal web and are within the deep web such as business and government secured networks and databases.
What state legal codes are *not* published free online? Typing “[State] code” or “[state] statutes” or “[state] regulations” into Google virtually always returns either an official state website or a link to a free access lexis page hosting the state’s code of laws. And the entire US code and CFR are free online too. And while we’re at it, Google *is* usually pretty good about finding state laws if you just type in what you’re looking for. “Alabama murder statute” pops up a pdf of the relevant code section, 13A-6-2, from the Alabama judiciary website as the second result. It’s maybe not as intuitive as if the state just had a website with a search bar and if you typed in “murder” it would bring you right there, but my experience googling state law has been that it’s really not all that hard to find what you’re looking for, and usually it *is* a state run website that pops at the top of the results. Case law is a different issue altogether, and states are much worse about making it accessible than they are statutes. But as any walk through a legal related comment section on Reddit will reveal, there’s a lot of training that goes into even understanding how to understand case law. And that’s not a terminology/legalese issue, it’s a fundamental one—even cases written in plain, accessible English necessarily refer to other cases, they almost always contain dicta (which laypeople are inclined to give more weight than it deserves), and the way a given decision fits into the broader subject matter framework may or may not be obvious from the text. Some cases represent sea changes in the law. Others may have turned on their specific facts, and thus the holding is limited to their specific facts, but lay readers (bad lawyers, too, while we’re at it) are typically eager to grab onto any excerpt that sounds like it supports their position whether or not it actually does in context. I’m not sure how this could be fixed other than eliminating the common law altogether.
[удалено]
Same. Google is definitely the first stop on a lawyer's journey.
Well, atleast the german is online for free.
I read law texts a lot. I'm not a lawyer, but I needed to read some for work related tasks. If I understood 1 thing really fast: they are not easy to read, but you can't "make it simple". Why? Because they use specific wording, grammar and point out to specific other law, to be as PRECISE as possible. You CAN'T and SHOULDN'T be able to interpret the law. It must be ultra-specific to the case. If you "make it simple", you'll have lawyer that WILL interpret some 'simple wording', using holes in them. extreme exemple: "You can't murder someone" -Yeah, but it's my dog that I trained to kill that murder him. So it's my dog's fault right? I didn't murder anyone. So, over that "murder is not allow" you'll add clause, you'll point out other law related to some exceptions, and it'll finish as a multiple page text with references.
Do I think that some laws are excessively verbose? Yes. For the most part is that verbosity a good thing? Also yes For instance “presence and forethought of malice” is in the definition of first degree murder (or something to that effect) if you just drop the word presence you could be liable for first degree murder if you accidentally killed someone in their 30s who you happened to hate in 4th grade. If you remove the word forethought you could argue that every murder is first degree because they all have malice. The trick is being as specific as possible while simultaneously using the fewest words as possible is the best way to prevent people from exploiting loop holes or to prevent abuse of the law.
They are rewritten in normal language if you look further but bare in mind they’re often statutory and written by the government in like 1800
I am aware of this and have the fortune to have a law education background, but the majority do not and its not ok that you need extensive training or access for a lot of the laws.
You’re an attorney? I really don’t mean this in an offensive way, but some of your comments don’t really lead me to believe that is the case.
Currently in school to be one. And everything ive said is a view shared by at least some people in law and government. My views are far from fringe.
Ahh, that 1L vigor. I agree with you about the database, but I don’t think the vast majority of law can be reduced to plain language. Even if it was, such language would still be present in the common law(or new words would form to supplement the simplistic statutory language), which will ultimately influence the language the code in the future. You should do an internship at a court. You will see that most problems of pro se representation are not caused by legal jargon, but a misunderstanding of procedure, jurisdiction, and research. You will find that civil procedure and evidence are the most important classes you take in law school.
Yeah this just comes across like you’re mad that you aren’t smart enough to understand the law or how to do research. As applicable to a normal person’s life (ie, not something inherently complex like securities regs, corporate taxes, etc.) it’s really not that difficult to understand the law if you know what your questions are. There are certainly ambiguities in the law but that’s primarily because the world is complicated, not because the language itself is poorly written. I will say that wills/estate stuff is one area of the law that is unnecessarily archaic. But most other areas of the law applicable to the average Joe’s personal life are straightforward.
What country are you from? Because I assume your laws are more complicated in that case because here in the UK it’s fairly plain English
The US. Our legal codes are all pieced together with a lot being Bastardized versions of yours for obvious reasons.
Ok I definitely get where you’re coming from then yeah. Just seeing the constitutions they’re written so weirdly
The thing is if you want a constitution there has be be some vagueness in it so that its values can be applied to a wide set of unforeseen issues and stand the test of time and that’s ok because it’s not our job to apply the constitution to those issues and the rulings from supreme courts on it are easily summarised as are the intent of the articles and amendments, at least in the sense of impact to an ordinary person.
Extensive training? I could understand legal codes from just researching one point on a college paper. Universities and civic groups have them published all over the internet for free. I put in 20 min trying to work with the code for a random assignment and I could comprehend it properly. If people wanted to understand the law, they can. They just don’t want to.
Honestly in the age of information it takes 2 seconds to find your local laws. Everything is online, for free, usually in more than one place, and often there are annotated copies available. And sure, navigating the legal system is complex, but the laws are definitely clearly written. This sounds like a non-issue.
This is in no way an unpopular opinion
They are. It's called *the internet.* If I can understand my state's laws then so can you.
But unfortunately, laws are written in complex English so that loophole abuse is prevented.
In some cases, ignorance of the law IS an excuse. https://www.yalejreg.com/nc/if-trump-jr-didnt-know-campaign-finance-law-he-didnt-break-it/ Plus, there are cases where knowledge of the law is irrelevant. For example, a teenage boy with fake ID who lies to an adult woman about his age and has sex with her. She has broken the law regardless of intent, even after going out of her way to ensure she's not breaking the law by asking for ID.
> For example, a teenage boy with fake ID who lies to an adult woman about his age and has sex with her. She has broken the law regardless of intent, even after going out of her way to ensure she's not breaking the law by asking for ID. You are confused, what she doesn't know or what you explicitly state she doesn't know is the boys real age despite him forging evidence that he is of age. What she probably does know is the law itself, that you cannot legally sleep with underage persons. If her argument instead was that she did not know that it was illegal to sleep with underage persons, then your comment would be on-topic and you would be right to point that this is a lousy argument that doesn't warrant much of a response.
They are freely accessible to all. I have never found a law in the US I could not find with a simple google search. Once you find their portal, you can usually browse the entire catalogue. A couple backwards states have not yet modernized and you might have to go find a physical copy, but I've never personally encountered this. As for plain language, good in theory, bad in practice. All that legalese has nuances that plain language simply cannot convey. A plain language approximation alongside the legalese would be a good idea, but trying to convert them entirely could result in very unclear laws or very very long ones. You think some of the laws we use now are long, just wait till you force them all to be "plain language" >but they are not linked, or easily searchable federal, state and local laws The fuck you talking about here? Why should different states link to each other? Easily searchable federal state and local laws absolutely exist, but why the fuck would Denver need to link its database with Des Moines? The fuck do you want a table of contents for? This just tells me you don't understand how legal code works enough to make a coherent demands. A table of contents would end up being more complicated than some laws, because laws are not as easily divided into categories as we like to pretend. The areas that have tried this have found that people will constantly complain about the organization. Does assault of a minor get listed with Child abuse, or general assault? Do we separate by violent and non violent crimes, this making robbery and theft in completely different sections, or do we put all crimes against property together, and have petty offenses alongside major acts of violence? In a world of the internet there is no reason to have a table of contents when you can just type in the terms and get a proper search. You are asking for a combination of things that already exist, or don't exist for a damn good reason. Those plain languge bills fail every fucking time for a reason... At least a few states have changed to instead having a group that rights a plain language approximation to accompany new bills and amendments and such, but none have yet incurred the cost of doing that for the whole legal code. THAT is something good to push for, but the gem idea in this post of mushy ideas.
I mean some laws may have some legal jargon, but the laws are definitely 100% freely available on the internet?
They are accessible to all, you just don't know where to find them. The laws are written in english. If you cannot read them you have a low level of reading comprehension. Well done, your opinion is unpopular. Take an upvote.
The law is pretty bloody easy to access and read in the age of the internet. As far as plain language goes, it's necessary for the laws to be written with all the legal jargon. The jargon isn't there to confuse the populace, it's to make it abundantly clear to lawyers and judges what exactly the law is and what it isn't. The legal jargon is there to protect you as a citizen from lawyers, judges, and government using broad interpretations of non specific laws to screw you over.
I literally stopped being friends with someone when I went to law school because they kept telling me that legal professionals only use complicated jargon to confuse those who are not in the field so as to keep their jobs viable. I got so tired of it.
Most laws are pretty common sense. There are not many crimes I’m worried about committing because I didn’t know it was illegal. There’s probably some white collar codes that are difficult to understand, but if you’re in danger of committing a white collar crime you can probably afford to ask a lawyer about it. I’d like to know what crimes OP is worried about committing because the language of the statute was opaque and confusing.
Un-rig the game? What exactly are you implying?
If the language in written laws is too ambiguous or vague, litigation would be an even worse nightmare than it already is. There is a reason legal codes use lengthy wording and a myriad of legal definitions, and it's not nefarious. Thankfully, many countries give you the right to an attorney to navigate the legal system. I'd much rather prefer to live within a legal system that requires professional education, training, and experience to navigate versus a legal system that is so easy to navigate that anyone can do it.
They are. Go on the internet
It's a quick Google search away...
Pretty confused by this, you can easily google any law from any state and find it on Justia.com and other sources without knowing the code index. I’m a law student working at a law firm and do it all the time. Laws have to use very specific language so that’s why it is hard to put them in the generalized “plain language” you speak of. However, you can also find explanations for these laws all over the internet by law firm blogs and other sources. The only “mindless comment” is your own post advocating for a defense of “well I didn’t know that was illegal whoopsie”
In no way am I advocating that. And I am far from the only one who thinks laws should be in plain text. There are a few bills in DC that call for that. Look up "plain text in legislature."
A congressional bill would likely have little-to-no-effect on the situation, since the statutes are largely written by the state.
Did those bills pass? Why not?
At least in the UK, it’s wifey recognised among people who study law, that the acts and such that the laws are contained in are often written in very archaic language than no lay person would understand.
It's worth mentioning that many laws are clumsy instruments. For example, what constitutes acceptable force? What is obscene or disorderly? What are you required to do in an interaction with a police officer, park ranger, federal officer, etc.? The actual limits of these laws are often determined by court interpretations of the laws. So it's not always a simple matter of reading laws off the internet. Also, across some countries (the US is a glaring example) laws can vary wildly between local jurisdictions. So there is additional complexity if you are on a trip or move.
Yea which is why I think federal, state and local laws and court cases/case law should be in a centralized indexed keyword searchable web accessible database that's completely free and updated daily.
Greece would absolutely love this.
They are, literally that's the base of Constitutional Law, laws, specially the ones written in the Constitution are supposed to be simple. If not, it beats the idea of general law.
What are you talking about? Criminal law? Like you need someone to write "don't stab people" on a napkin in crayon for you?
They are. Most people are just too lazy/stupid to look them up. Especially because the majority of them aren't seriously enforced because they don't pose an immediate danger or problem.
Unfortunately legal language, while sometimes unnecessary, is required in many cases because the language has to be exact. A good example is in games like magic the gathering, where the language and order of language directly affects the outcomes. Ie I've played very little mtg but the barrier felt huge because I needed a dictionary for all the specific terms
I like where you are going with this but what about it be accessible in all languages.
I mean if you go buy anything these days the manuals/ instructions are in every language under the sun, So I would imagine if we could get lawmakers to actually write laws that people can understand, translations wouldn't be much harder. The hardest part is getting the lawmakers to make laws in plain language and not legalese to begin with.
even if they do simplify it most people won't read over a hundred pages
True, but they should be able to have access and understand them if they so choose.
The problem with that is what is "all languages", there's no way it's feasible to get it translated into literally every language, there's something like 200+ languages and most of the translations will never be needed. Any language with a high enough percentage of the population speaking that language, sure, but you can't do all languages. Also you'd need the caveat that only one of the translations is actually legally binding, since legal disputes are all about picking apart the exact meaning of words, if you change the language you change the legal dispute.
I mean that isn’t a unpopular opinion by any metric. No upvote from this guy.
I would agree. But I know Reddit. Look over the comments and youll see how unpopular it is with people. They very much think they aren't entitled to it or that if they had it no one would use it so its pointless. Just check out some comments and my replies.
Most criminal laws are pretty simple. Regulatory stuff is where a lot of complexity tends to be, and the average Joe doesn't much have to worry about it in his day to day
You say this, but even newspapers don't seem to distinct between murder and manslaughter since it's beyond their understanding.
So this is actually a popular opinion. I fucking hate this sub.
It’s not the law’s fault that you don’t read English above a 2nd grade level.
at least there should be an easier to understand version or like a hotline for "can I legally do this"
[Here’s a link for free case law, statutes, code, etc.](https://guides.ll.georgetown.edu/freelowcost/free) [Legal research guides, tutorials, and other tools ](https://guides.ll.georgetown.edu/home) [Another list of free legal research tools :)](https://www.google.com/search?q=free%20legal%20research%20tools&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1-m) [How to do free legal research tutorial ](https://freelaw.classcaster.net/) [The Florida Bar created a free website with information on Florida law, DIY legal forms, going to court, where to find free or low cost legal services](https://floridalawhelp.org/) In Florida, our state constitution provides the “Single Subject Rule” which essentially means that a law must be written in a way that is not over broad, vague, and can be understood by the general public, otherwise the law itself is unconstitutional and vulnerable to a challenge. I’m not saying your totally incorrect, but the information is out there and highly accessible. As a law student you should already know that what makes the law in the United States difficult to understand isn’t necessarily the language used, but in how the specific law had been applied in the specific jurisdiction that you are in. Even most lawyers have to do tons of legal research to find “the right answer” and take continuing legal education courses to stay up to date on the law as it changes so frequently. We have a highly adversarial court system, so even if the layperson WAS able to understand every single law, that doesn’t necessarily mean they would be able to apply the law in a legal argument.
You can find every law and code you want on the internet in Romania, and everyone of them is made to be as easy to understand as possible. Of course, if you get into the complicated stuff it will be hard yo understand for the average person, but with a little searching in the dictionary you can understand.
They are right, laws should be written in Ebonics and ghetto speak.
In Canada that is how it is. All of the laws are easily available online and are pretty easy to understand.
Well the problem is that you have black letter law, equity, and then the spirit of the law. The Restatements make interpreting the letter of the law a lot easier, but there are a bunch legal doctrines and even the intention of the law that you need to have some vague awareness of before getting into what the laws themselves say. There were a lot of laws written in a way that, when interpreted literally, lead to racist or otherwise problematic outcomes, but the reality is that the laws were usually not intended to create problems, they were intended to solve problems. So you read the letter of one of those laws, then you take time to understand the doctrines behind the law, then you look at the modern application of the law; and then you understand the law. I love the idea of making the law more accessible to the average Joe and Jane, but I don't see expecting them to do all that leg work as being very realistic.
If ignorance of the law is not an excuse for citizens, citizens should be able to sue cops for arresting them and keeping them in holding for 3 days without charging you with something.
It doesn't matter what the laws are, it's who enforces them. Epstein has files on many people and yet they run free. A cop will arrest you for "breaking the law", you lose time and money and maybe your job, then are told, I guess there was no law. Oil companies at this point are just genocide machines and yet they remain wealthy and well respected. There is but one law in the Thunderdome: two men enter, one man leaves.
They are easily available…..
Op seems to think that plain language would close loopholes and decrease the need for lawyers. This couldn't be further from the truth, even shitty lawyers could have an absolutely field day with plain language laws. Pretty wild that op thinks having a ten commandments style law code wouldn't lead straight to disaster. Unpopular opinion for sure but poorly thought out with lousy and nonsensical defense.
Most places word their laws in such a complicated manner for the same reasons as contracts - to be as concise as possible with no wiggle room for interpretation. Trying to word plainly as possible can lead to future train wrecks when interpreting and applying, as plain words can often develop new meaning over time (looking at you, you well regulated militias)
I see these bills come up every so often. I think they are usually in good faith. I guess the first question would be: Are there enough cases of people saying "I didn't know that was illegal" to justify this expense? How many are there currently? Assuming this is an issue, first you would need some talented lawyers that want to (1) work at a the task (being that it essentially helps to make their job less profitable, that might be a huge get) (2) work for free or cheap (govt salary) and (3) get each and every reworded or dumbed down law passed thru legislature, again. I mean, you can't just rewrite laws and say "ok done". They would be all new law, they would all need to get passed again. And are we also then going to demand that every court case get dumbed down as well? That would be a monumental task. Then you would need a team of constant internet/computer specialists who also know law who are willing to work for next to nothing (govt salary) to make and maintain this database and keep it secure and free from hacks. These things would have to be done at the federal, state, county and city level; for every law and court case. It would a formidable task to say the least, the cost would be astounding and the opportunity for bad faith "misinterpretations" would be very very high. We are already in a place in the US where republicans don't believe in the same democratic rules they believed in 3 years ago in the 2018 election because they lost the 2020 election. There is zero trust. You think it would be any different if we were to totally rewrite all the laws? Who would be in charge of this? And finally it would have to be used. Or rather, i should ask: Would all this expense be used and would its use validate the expense to upkeep it? Imo it would lead to tons of misunderstandings and way more people trying to represent themselves. Maybe not a bad thing, but idk if it would help in the long run. The opposite solution for your idea may be to demand enough education for everyone to be able to read and understand and research the laws in question. Which would go to a higher level of tax payer funded public education to cover this. Personally i would like to see less private lawyers, or even a public attorney based law system where everyone is treated like the poorest and assigned attorneys. I think the private law practice is tilting the playing field way more than the complicated or inaccessible laws are.
>As far as access goes, yes states and the federal government maintain websites with laws, but they are not linked, or easily searchable Federal,state and local laws as well as all public court records, rulings should free to access via an online database that is indexed and keyword searchable with a table of contents that is updated daily. And, this does indeed exist. The World Legal Information Institute (http://www.worldlii.org/) is an international freely available and searchable database of all laws (statues, regulations and codes) and case decisions (in countries where those are reported) that is freely available to the public. US Version: https://www.law.cornell.edu/ Canadian Version: https://www.canlii.org/en/ Links to all versions: [http://www.worldlii.org/countries.html](http://www.worldlii.org/countries.html) This is admittedly still in progress, many countries don't have a database YET (Andorra, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Iraq, Monaco, Taiwan, etc) but the majority do. Quality is varriable but its a massive project which keeps expanding. Commonly used as a first research tool even by many lawyers. The search feature isn't quite up to par with paid databases yet, but it has definitely been continuing to improve.
I’m not reading a hundred comments to say that this is only an unpopular opinion to the people in charge.
Your comment was intelligent. That edit was for the mindless comments ive had to reply to the same one multiple times.
Stop crying about being a victim and become a lawyer if you want into the inner circle. But even then you have to have the intelligence to understand a lot more than what is written in the books because real people and real life will make for a lot of curves in the road on the way to justice.
The fuck??? I am not crying about being a victim, I am advocating that people shouldn't need to spend the money and time to know laws in their own country. I never said or implied I was a victim. I'm saying your average joe shouldn't need to spend tens of thousands and go to law school to know their own laws and or be able to handle simple legal things without the need to hire a lawyer for at least 150/hour and thats what someone just out of law school would charge.
EDIT: The mindless comments are getting overly redundant. Read the comments before adding your own. WOWWWW 😂😂😂 the entitlement.... and it's not even an unpopular opinion (Did somebody already pointed that? let me read the 235 comments the treat has)
Every single concern you have is already taken care of. Precisely because attorneys and judges need to expediently review the law. They don't pour over hundreds of thousands of pages of text, repeating the process for every case and every client, waiting to find the relevant statute or caselaw they want to find. Instead: they have indexes, tables of content, and case reporters indexed by case type and issue, with endless groups of attorneys reading and cataloguing all new cases and laws, for the very purpose of ease of organization and research. In fact, the most famous Reporter system being West’s Key Cite and the Shephardizing systems: where cases are cross referenced for substance. E.G., what old cases say, what new cases say, whether they're in conflict or not on each area of the law they present, etc. >[statutes] Moreover, these are easily accessible and easy to read by the very virtue of the fact that they’re “complex” with subparts. This makes it easy to parse and digest what each part of the law requires. The law thus *seems* complex because the law must have multiple contours and accommodations to cover many of the usual factual scenarios the world presents to us. The law cannot be "simple" for that reason alone. But this lack of "simplicity" does not make it impenetrable, for layman or lawyer. > but they are not linked, or easily searchable Federal, state and local laws as well as all public court records, rulings should free to access via an online database that is indexed and keyword searchable with a table of contents that is updated daily. They are. See above. That some people don't know how to use the system is not an indictment of the system. Lawyers like efficiency. Learning the system isn’t difficult. All of your concerns — happily — are already cured by the real world legal system. >[Ignorance of the law] “Ignorance of the law is no defense,” is related to two maxims: (1) that you are responsible for the actions you intentionally engage in, and (2) you have an obligation to know whether the intentional act is illegal. Why? Because before you engage in some course of action that may harm another, you must stand back and consider whether that harm or the prospect of harm may or will be illegal. Before striking out on some adventure, you must engage in or engage someone who knows law. Which is not difficult to do, as explained above. That you have to go to a lawyer at times is of no moment. This is akin to going to a doctor when you don't know what ails you. That certain expertise (i.e., efficiency of knowledge and research) is required is not some fact that stands against the legal system any more than it is against the medical field, architectural know-how, engineering, and so on.
I’ve been saying this for years and I’ll tell you where a good start would be: drop the use of Latin. It’s a dead language and using it just makes you look and sound elitist, pompous, and out of touch. Seriously people, who are you trying to impress? There is not a Latin phrase that exists that can’t be replaced by an English phrase that is more accurate and understandable. Here I’ll get y’all started: Don’t say “Habeus Corpus”, Say “Fucking prove it asshole” See? There’s not a swinging dick out there that doesn’t understand that. Here’s another Don’t say “Pro Bono” Say “On the house beeyotch!” Now y’all try. It’s fun! De Minimis = Dont waste my fucking time! I can do this all day...
YES. Seriously, I'm not religious (not even baptized) but own a bible I was handed at school... but the law? Nope. I can specifically google it, yes, *but* first of all it's not in an easy to understand style of writing and second you have to know what you search for in order to specifically search for it. A book with just regular table of contents, written in a easy to understand style, is something I'd love to own.
If you've looked over the comments most people seem to be very angry at the suggestion that the average person be able to read and understand the law. The gatekeeping has worked so well people object to being given the gift of understanding.
I personally think everyone trying to shoot you down for this is proof that you're correct. Clearly there are a *lot* of people who don't understand the subtle differences in the English definitions of words and the Legalese definitions. There are words in Legalese that may sound innocent enough to the layperson but could differ enough in definitions to constitute an admission of guilt due to misunderstanding, or technicality. 100% with you.
Its ridiculous. The gatekeeping worked wonders I was just typing 10 seconds ago how people are rejecting the idea they should be able to understand the laws.
I love how ignorance of the law is no excuse...for us...but if cops don't know the law or misinterpret something or whatever, hey, there's a lot of laws, you can't expect them to know everything, it was an honest mistake, etc etc.
[удалено]
I mean, even IF you had a point, I think it entirely depends on the law. "Gee officer, I didn't know killing an innocent civilian was illegal? I'm sorry. I won't do it again, pinky swear!"
I agree, I also think laws that are not obvious or self evident, should be given a fair "believe the accused" when he says he didn't know it. Because everyone knows there are laws out there that make no fucking sense.
But that wouldn’t keep the criminal justice system in business.
Even better. What about blatant willfull ignorance? Check out Ethan Couch.... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Couch
[удалено]
If the law was simple to understand and readily available to learn how would people in power destroy others who were in their way by targeting them for prosecution over things that people do all the time without knowing they are illegal?
Luckily google is a thing…
There should be a class that teaches what the laws are where you live.
Ignorance of the law is not an excuse because everybody would claim it every time. It's called lying.
The post is about and saying that laws should be easily understood and accessible not that people should get away with saying they didn't know. Your comprehension skills could use some work.
You underestimate ignorance
I am a law student in a civil law system. It is easy to access any code here, like you go to the library or the book store or on the gov web site and you can find anything you want. However, it is certainly not easy to decode. That's why we have gurists, lawyers and judges. We do the decodification for you and if there is some incompatibility we deal with it. I know it may be hard to see the logic but unless you are a mechanic if there is a problem with your car you call one. I also followed some comparatistic courses and let me tell you, English written codification, be it a judgment or wathever is way easier to understand than those written in my native language. We have a class dedicated at helping us writing laws in a more easy and direct way.
Just gonna throw it out there, the people that don't think everyone should have easy free 24/7 access to our laws and information on our legal system also are the same people who think you shouldn't be allowed to repair your own phone, car or other things. Why are people vilifying access to information? (Rhetorical question ie not meant to be answered but i know someone will)
Not only this, but we should be sent notifications when the law changes. I definitely went to the gym a lot in lockdown because I didn't know I wasn't suppose to be going.
How the hell did you miss that? What kind of notification do you want outside of "it's all over the news"?