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Originally Posted by 9th Engineer
My point is that there isn't that room for interpretation involved. If the law says something then that's what you have to go by, if the law is poorly written and doesn't cover all the bases then you need to change the law on the books. None of this precident crap, if people think a law has become outdated or doesn't include circumstances that are relevant now then you need to rewrite the law. Otherwise you open the entire thing to corruption from 'interpretations' and 'extrapolations' that really arn't appropriate.
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Sure, in theory that's a good idea, but in reality, it's very difficult to write a law so that it applies to all situations the way you want it to. That's why there is the concept of case law (precidential court decisions related to your situation) and legislative history when there are ambiguities in the actual law and case law.
Look at the RICO laws that were passed to fight the mafia. They are being stretched by aggressive prosecutors to cover things like the hiring practices of recruiting agencies.
The law is very messy.