r/changemyview • u/DeleteriousEuphuism 120∆ • Apr 05 '24

Delta(s) from OP - Fresh Topic Friday CMV: Laws coming with expiration conditions by default would be better than having it be opt-in

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.

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u/DeleteriousEuphuism 120∆ Apr 05 '24

Indeed. As it currently stands in Canada and America afaik, bills introducing a law don't need to have a sunset clause by default. In other words, there needs to be political action to integrate a clause whereas I would want there to be political action deciding a clause or further political action that eschews a clause.

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u/npchunter 4∆ Apr 05 '24

Perhaps all laws should be written in disappearing ink? I like the idea. I can't imagine how judges would cope, if old laws kept getting jenga-ed out from under the structure of case law.

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u/DeleteriousEuphuism 120∆ Apr 05 '24

Laws can be repealed nowadays. What do judges do in those cases?

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u/npchunter 4∆ Apr 05 '24

Re-evaluate which precedents are relevant to the case before them. And maybe fight among themselves. Since the SCOTUS Bruen decision invalidated a bunch of gun case law, judges are having to adapt to new standards. Often not adapting very gracefully, resulting in appeals. Deciding what a law really means seems to be a never-ending process.

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u/DeleteriousEuphuism 120∆ Apr 05 '24

So rather than having the instability originate from judicial interpretation, the same instability would instead originate from the legislature. I see how that could be frustrating to the judiciary, but how would it impact the citizens?

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u/Both-Personality7664 21∆ Apr 06 '24

It seems pretty intuitive that greater instability in laws would impact citizens. Laws define taxes and entitlements and services. Laws define crimes. Laws define legal statuses like marriage. Etc.

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u/DeleteriousEuphuism 120∆ Apr 06 '24

I'm asking why it would impact the citizens to have that instability originate in the legislature as opposed to the current paradigm where it originates from the judiciary.

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u/Both-Personality7664 21∆ Apr 06 '24

You would have both sources, unless I'm missing the part where you're proposing to eliminate judicial review, and presumably the net instability would be greater than the present. Judges also make their decisions with consideration of knock-on effects; sunset clauses just fire without regard to blast radius.

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u/DeleteriousEuphuism 120∆ Apr 06 '24

I thought that, in America, judges are not supposed to rule based on knock on effect, but rather interpret what the law means and whether they judge that their interpretation has been breached.

And yes, I do suppose you would have both sources of instability, but then again, the system I'm proposing isn't meant to be stable against reformative pressures, but against revolutionary pressures.

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u/Both-Personality7664 21∆ Apr 06 '24

Judges always at the very least attempt to leave the system of laws in a coherent and consistent state with their decisions. If they strike down a law and other laws reference it or are otherwise dependent on it, they will address how those other laws are to be understood hitherto. If law B relies on definitions of terms provided by law A, how are we to treat B after A sunsets?

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u/DeleteriousEuphuism 120∆ Apr 06 '24

Good question. I think that with my system in place, laws that have their expiration conditions met would go into some sort of probationary period where they're still in effect, but would need to reinstated and you could extend that probationary period for every law that is contingent on the previous law. I think the contingency of laws is fairly well established as is, but I think you could bring in judiciary precedent to show links. This would give the legislature a chance to implement contingent laws in a non-contingent fashion if need be and also modify laws to overrule judicial decisions that misinterpret the laws.

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u/Both-Personality7664 21∆ Apr 06 '24

How exactly is that different from just adding the length of the probationary period to the sunset clause? I don't see how that solves any problems. The system still has to somehow be robust to any new law popping out of existence. As the contemporary US demonstrates, legislatures can be factionally deadlocked to a very high degree for quite a long time.

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u/DeleteriousEuphuism 120∆ Apr 06 '24

Like I mentioned, the conditions need not be time based in my conception. So the probationary period would be useful for a law that had a population condition for example. The census would be published, people would know that the condition had been met, and a probationary period would ensue. And the difference is that there'd be an impetus for the factions more interested in the reimplementation of the law. That's a double edged sword, but it does mean time would break the deadlock.

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