[procgen]

Disregarding the letter of the law seems arbitrary and capricious.

[internetter]

Is it? Developers used to determinism in software frequently don't understand that in all jurisdictions the law is ultimately interpreted by humans. I've been going through some legal processes myself, and my friend who is a lawyer reminded me more times than I care to admit that this is the case.

In the US, SCOTUS's job is literally to interpret the spirit of the law in the event of ambiguity.

[AshamedCaptain]

Developers are fully used to this ambiguity and "spirit of the law" when interpreting standards. Search for WeirdNIX (popularly known as Windows NT and other names too).

[klaustopher]

There's different ways to interpret laws for courts. One of them is called teleological interpretation where you follow the intent of the law. For this courts also look into the documentation the legislation provided when defining the law. This is usually not done by lower courts, but courts like the CJEU use those when the letter of the law is unclear to define this for the lower courts to follow.

[abigail95]

This would be more valid if the law was passed with a message that says "please interpret this law according to this documentation teleologically"

[Hamuko]

The situation in the US seems to suggest that trying to finely analyze the exact sequence of words in a law or the consitution still leaves a whole lot of room for arbitrary decisions. Abortion was a constitutional right until it wasn't and the constitution was not changed between.

[anon373839]

All language carries inherent ambiguity. However, developments in American constitutional law aren’t really about that. The Constitution is very general and it uses terms that lack an objective meaning (for example, “Due Process” - what counts as “process”? What process is “due”?) It can’t really be implemented without bringing in a pile of philosophy and policy making.

At the same time, SCOTUS has been guilty of stretching its terms to include ideas that are clearly out of scope. (For example, the dubious invention of “substantive” due process - which all of the abortion stuff hinges on.)

[rekoil]

But that's the thing, when your law is legally binding in 24 different languages it's really impractical if not entirely impossible to have a system based on letter-of-the-law interpretations...

[justin66]

> Disregarding the letter of the law seems arbitrary and capricious.

There's a distinction to be made between principles-based and rules-based regulation which I bet you're unfamiliar with.