Should all laws be legally challengeable based on their officially-stated objectives?

[Machjo]

Would you agree with the idea that every law the government passes must be accompanied by officially-stated objectives that can be legally challenged in a court of law?

To take an example. Let's say the government passes a new law, but all empirical evidence suggests that this law is not achieving its intended objective or is conflicting with the ovjectives of another law. Of course we should give the law a chance to prove itself, but once the law has been in the books for a sufficiently long period of time for its proclaimed objectives to have started to take effect, but with no evidence that it has started to do so, from that point forward it coud be challenged. Should we thus be allowed to ignore this law on those grounds? This would essentially mean that the law could be enforced only as long as:

1. It's officially-stated objectives do not conflict with the officially-stated objectives of another law, and

2. No empirical evidence (after the law has been in effect long enough to have had a chance to prove itself) has yet proven the law to be ineffective in achieving its stated objectives.

The way I see it, this would force a certain amount of honesty on politicians as they'd have to explicitly declare the objectives of the law and have the law stand or fall based on these intended objectives.

Would you support such a policy?

 

[Trex]

Would you agree with the idea that every law the government passes must be accompanied by officially-stated objectives that can be legally challenged in a court of law?

To take an example. Let's say the government passes a new law, but all empirical evidence suggests that this law is not achieving its intended objective or is conflicting with the ovjectives of another law. Of course we should give the law a chance to prove itself, but once the law has been in the books for a sufficiently long period of time for its proclaimed objectives to have started to take effect, but with no evidence that it has started to do so, from that point forward it coud be challenged. Should we thus be allowed to ignore this law on those grounds? This would essentially mean that the law could be enforced only as long as:

1. It's officially-stated objectives do not conflict with the officially-stated objectives of another law, and

2. No empirical evidence (after the law has been in effect long enough to have had a chance to prove itself) has yet proven the law to be ineffective in achieving its stated objectives.

The way I see it, this would force a certain amount of honesty on politicians as they'd have to explicitly declare the objectives of the law and have the law stand or fall based on these intended objectives.

Would you support such a policy?

No.
Of course not.

The Canadian legal system is precedent based and descends from British common law which was introduced into Canada around 1700.
It is intertwined with our parliamentary system as well as the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
It is also intertwined with a French Napoleonic system that is still used in Quebec.

In other words our legal system has been evolving for around 250 years and is considered to be one of the better systems in use today.

Chucking all that out and whipping a new one up on the back of a pack of smokes doesn't really do it for me .

Trex

 

[petros]

The entire democratic legal system hinges on "lawful excuse". The whole premise of arguing your case is based on being able to state why and how badly you broke the law to determine sentencing or innocnece.

 

[Machjo]

So a law should not have to reveal its objectives? And a law should not be able to be challenged based on whether or not it is meeting those stated objectives, or on whether its objectives conflict with the official objectives of another law?

We have too many contradictory laws as is, along with laws that are not achieving their stated objectives. Wouldn't such a law help to eradicate some of the contradictions in some of our current laws?

 

[L Gilbert]

I think our laws should be reviewed. Obviously some should be extracted from the book of rules and stuck in history books. Others should be clarified, amended, etc.

 

[Machjo]

Or to take some examples of how such a law might apply:

The government introduces a gas tax along with the official objective of reducing the consumption of fossil fuels. A person could reuse to pay the gas tax if:

1. The law has been in the books long enough to justify that it should have at least started to achieve its intended objective, and

2. The intended objective is not being met, even taking all factors, such as population growth, etc. into account.

Now if the law does prove able to achieve its intended objective, then you'd have to pay it.

Another example:

The provincial government passes a law requiring all students to learn French, with the objective that all pupils will be fluent in French by the end of compulsory education. If, after a number of decades, the provincial rate of success proves dismal, a student or school could then challenge the law (or in some cases decree of the ministry of education) in court on the argument that the law or decree is not achieving its stated objectives after having had more than enough time to prove itself.

Now of course the government could work around this by redefining the objectives (e.g. to give the students some experience of second-language learning). Even if students fail in large numbers, it could still be argued that the law could achieve at least that objective, though people could then criticise the ridiculousness of such a petty educational objective. But at least then the only way the law could survive woudl be by coupling it with an attainable objective, however ridiculous the objective might be, and that would thus force governments, if they want their laws to stick, to couple them with attainable and measurable objectives.

Such a law would push alot of other laws out of existence once they shoudl have been given sufficient time to prove themselves up to the task of achieving their tated objectives.

 

[Machjo]

This woudl also force governments to be more honest. For example, let's say a government makes French a compulsory second language in school with the official objective of having students learn French. In court, that could be challenged owing to the ambiguity of the term 'learn'. So then, the government could clarify the objective as 'making students fluent in French by the end of compulsory education'. If, after a reasonable period of time to prove itself (for second-language learning, that woudl be a period of at least 15 years), the law fails toschieve its stated objective, if the government insists on keeping it on the books, it could change it to 'creating jobs for teachers of French', which is an achievable ovjective, and by that standard, prove successful. However, this would show how the only way for the law to stick would be for politicians to become more transparent about the intended objectives of the law.

 

[Cannuck]

I'm game. I've often thought about this when I see the photo-radar van. I'm not against photo-radar, I just think the government should be honest and say it is about generating money. Currently, they lie to us and say it's about safety.

 

[petros]

I just think the government should be honest and say it is about generating money. Currently, they lie to us and say it's about safety.

For them it's safe income that we can't get out of.

 

[VanIsle]

I'm game. I've often thought about this when I see the photo-radar van. I'm not against photo-radar, I just think the government should be honest and say it is about generating money. Currently, they lie to us and say it's about safety.

Why don't you fight this. We did in BC and we won. The photo radar is gone and has been for quite sometime. There is nothing more useless in the way of traffic control and it's a given that it is a tax grab. Anyone who gets a ticket in the mail weeks to months after the "offence" doesn't care other then how deep their pockets are and they may not even have been the driver of the car. Useless piece of crap is all that is. It doesn't slow anyone down. You only slow down the moment you get caught and a "caught" weeks later via mail doesn't tell you anything. You might not even figure out who was driving the car if there are several in your household who do.8O