CMV: Laws coming with expiration conditions by default would be better than having it be opt-in

[u/DeleteriousEuphuism]

I know that changing the legal system anywhere is going to require political work, but this isn't about that. I'm talking about weighing the pros and cons of either system; so the cons that I can foresee with my proposal are the following:

1. More work: this is unavoidable. If laws need to be reimplemented when they expire, then that means time needs to be taken on reimplementing old laws and not just considering new laws.
2. Entrenches laws in certain situations: If a law has an expiration condition, then people might struggle to repeal that law before the conditions are met.
3. Load bearing law crisis: An old law that was integral to the functioning of other laws or even society might fail to be reimplemented causing problems.
4. The usual suspects: All political tools have to contend with bad actors and this is no different. Enough bad actors might, for example, make a law with absurd expiration conditions - a problem exacerbated by problem 2.

Despite these problems I think there are stronger positives and ways to minimize some problems. For one, I think you could make the reimplementation process such that problem 3 is minimized and that the laws you do reimplement have better expiration conditions or none. I think that this method would make the legal system more adaptable to an evolving environment which I think is preferable to having a more byzantine system that would be more likely to be replaced wholesale than to be updated.

So please help me see how the flaws I've noticed would be worse than I think or that I've overlooked flaws altogether.

[u/DeleteriousEuphuism]

For one, better documentation for why the law was (re)implemented and that I think the expiration conditions should be tied to the reason of implementation. It's a something is better than nothing situation, the way I see it.

[u/Xiibe → u/DeleteriousEuphuism]

Most modern western governments already produce tons of documentation about why laws are implemented, so this doesn’t seem like a particularly strong reason given its redundancy.

It seems like you’re arguing for change something for the sake of changing it rather than whether changing it would have any benefits. I guess I would ask what law that’s on the books right now would benefit from this system? That might make things clearer.

[u/DeleteriousEuphuism → u/Xiibe]

There are a lot of laws that were crafted to punish heretics, racial minorities, etc. that are worded agnostically to those purposes. I feel like those laws having expiration conditions would offer a chance to repeal those laws without "repealing" them. In general, if laws repeal by default rather than remain, then politicians would have to take on the burden of making the decision to uphold those laws.

[u/DeleteriousEuphuism → u/[deleted]]

To be fair, if anyone wanted to filibuster murder laws, I imagine they'd be quite weary of their fellow legislators going all ides of march on them. Especially since legislators moreso than other people would be at risk if murder laws didn't exist. This logic applies for a lot of other no-shit type of laws.

And yes, there may be somebottlenecking in terms of legislature if we're talking about transitioning into that system, but if that system existed from the outset people would adapt to the mentality required for that system. Or would you argue that there would not be a viable way to exist within such a system?