Vadinho's great law simplification challenge

Vadinho believes that law is fairly simple and that legal rules of which we have many can be simplified down to a handful of principles. Now, I agree with vadinho to the extent that we have too much legislation and too much case-law. But I most definitely do not agree with vadinho's suggestion that the law can be reduced to a handful of principles. However, since he has been so vocal about this topic in a thread that had nothing to do with it whatsoever, I thought it might be worthwhile testing his propositions here in CA.

Vadinho has suggested the following principle as apt at covering all of the legal questions which might arise in family law:



In relation to laws of armed conflict:




....Thoughts?

And how do you ensure consistency in a large society.

?? The broader the principle, the more it applies. If you correctly state a principle it covers absolutely everything within its boundaries WITHOUT further need for specification.

For the family one, we develop a set of criteria for defining the quality of the parent, including how to define unfit. We then push the parents through it, like sausages, and see what score comes out!!

On the family law principle, you would need to define 'better', 'parent', 'visiting rights', and 'unfit'. There is also much more I could say about that, but I'll turn to the armed conflict principle because that is perhaps an area of law you are more familiar with.

Apart from your many definitional problems, and apart from the fact that demoralising the enemy is not a violation of international humanitarian law, what about destruction and plunder of property? what about defences? what about different shades of culpability - eg attacks as part of genocide vs attacks not targeting civilians but falling outside of the justification of military necessity? what about the penalty regime? what about mechanisms of enforcement, of jurisdiction?

I could go on...

The broader the principle, the more vague it gets. Then people don't know what they can and can't do. Laws have to be certain for a reason vadihno, the rule of law and in the context of criminal law a small principle of nullum crimen sine lege.

All you would end up with vadinho, as a result of your simplification process, is what we have today, just new packaging and a vadinho stamp of approval. There would be no substantive or qualitative difference whatsoever.

bob would you mind editing the title so that vads' name is spelled correctly. my tying is quite something today

typing! that is. Jesus

I thought it was quite fitting.

How does my prin ciple not cover it? If I can show that my plunder of property was ordered as part of a strategic policy to demoralise then I'm fine; if I at Private Bloggs did it to feather my own nest, I get convicted.

I already said that military necessity can include demoralisation, so carpet bombing of cities ala Douhet would be entirely legal. Direct targetting of civilians IS legal (strwaman there BG!)

As for enforcement and jurisdiction, that's a separate manner entirely. I have shown you, however, how a simple principle cna govern everything.

Very basic physical laws manage to govern every single element of reality, you know. Inertia applies whether it's a cat, car, carrot, or carrier. Same with well crafted, broad laws.

"Any vehicle" rather than "cars, motorcycles etc"

Most of the time the statutes state things in black and white terms; the problem are all the accretions of case law.

But you haven't Your principle referred to an attack on civilians, not on property which can also amount to a war crime. Your principle does not account for any of the things I have listed (defences, degress of culpability, jurisdiction, enforcement, penalties). In addition, it does not account for different modes of participation (a high ranking official giving an order to wipe out a village commits a quite different offence to a soldier who following that order shoots a single unarmed civilian). In addition, it is vaguely put which runs contrary to the fundamental requirement that any species of criminal law must be certain.

Laws of physics have the luxury of not having to regulate human behaviour. Human behaviour is complex, our society and our interactions with one another are complex. In a single conversation, I can expose myself to tort liabilty, contract liability, or criminal liability depending on what words I choose.

And finally, military necessity is a narrow defence available only to a few war crimes, and does not include demoralisation. Also, unless I'm reading my Geneva Conventions wrong direct targeting of civilians who are not taking part in hostilities is a war crime, crime against humanity and depending on the context could amount to genocide.

As for the accretions of case law, again, real life situations tend to test the black and white principles set out in legislation. Most of the time the words of the statute do not accommodate all the nuances of a real life situation. And because the system strives to achieve justice, you have case law supplementing legislation. Again, case in point: international criminal law. Its a relatively young area of law (only started taking off post WWII), the statutes governing the area are comprehensive, yet case law which now supplements the conventions is quite volumous.

The general test is what is in the best interests of the child and what will promote their welfare the most. s4 (maybe 5??) Care of Children Act.

In terms of the set of criteria, there are many things the family court takes into account. The older the child is, the more weight that is generally given to their views.

Usually by the stage it gets to a final hearing, there has been a psychologist's report and social work report. Psychologist is provided with a brief to work from, with this brief being drawn from the main issues in contention.

(I'm yet to have a case go to a final hearing on care issues in around 4.5 years of family law. Most cases seem to settle either prior to or after psychologist's reports)

When an allegaqtion of physical or sexual violence is made against a parent, before the court can grant the allegedly violent person an order giving them day to day care or unsupervised contact, the court has to make a determination as to whether the allegation of violence is proved, and if so, whether the child will be safe in their care. There are a number of factors which are taken into account by the court when making the determination as to whether the child will be safe. Those are listed in s61. If the court is satisfied the child will be safe, an order for unsupervised contact or day to day care can be made.


That's a brief rundown. Just educating vad a bit. So haven't read past the post I've quoted.

Any probs with what I've stated above vad?

ps you don't have to be a biological parent to apply for day to day care of a child. often if a child is being put at risk in the care of its parents, other family members may step in and apply for day to day care themselves. they will need to apply for leave to apply though.

in the situation where you have CYF involved, and they have been granted custody and for whatever reason a child/children have not been placed in family/whanau care, at some point the aim will become permanency (when parents not able to care for child properly and family not able to step in etc), and they will encourage the caregivers to apply for day to day care etc and CYF may gradually step out of the picture.

any issues so far vad?

and why have you chosen 2 days as a number? why not 3 days?

So human behaviour is MORE complex than physics? My god, the sheer arrogance you are displaying is ridiculous. More complex than nuclear reactions? Special relativity?

Also you YET AGAIN use the flawed defence of what IS to criticise what MIGHT BE. You say "military necessity is a narrow defence etc" well obviously it wouldn't be if I got to set the legal principles, would it? If I get to develop the law, then I don't care about the Geneva Conventions. They don't exist in this hypothetical simplified world.

Stop trying to apply what IS to my world of what MIGHT BE. Under my principle, there wouldn't be any difference between different modes of participation, defences, degrees of culpability etc. So what?

I like to analogise. Your view of the law is a hand-crafted sniper rifle, chromium lined barrel, lovingly machined, with a stock fitted to a particular user. Everything machined to exact precision. It requires oiling every day, and cannot handle dirt and wet, but it is a magnificent weapon of accuracy and precision.

I prefer a submachine gun made of stamped parts. It's not as accurate, but it's easy for anybody to use, cheap to make, and goes no matter what you throw on it.

btw one of the more common options for contact for children at school, where shared care not an option and where parties may live some distance apart is:

contact every second weekend
contact half of school holidays
alternate xmas days
other contact as agreed

Because I'm allowed to. It had to be less than half. 2 days was, in my view, sufficient for a weekend/week type split.

Yet again "perfect is the enemy of good enough."

so you don't believe in having consistency throughout the law? you don't believe in people knowing what the law means for them? if it is less accurate, surely that means it's harder for people to use? creating more of a need for lawyers? creating more of a need for oourt cases, caselaw? hang on, you don't like caselaw do you?

so what is your solution?

How do you derive that?

A simple set of black and white principles can be used. Instead of what Lord Cholmondley-Smith thought in 1825, we can simple judge each case on its merits. Well written, simple statutes will prevent the type of hole-seeking behaviour prevalent today.

Broad rules cover EVERYTHING. If you don't understand that, you're silly. A simple binary solution set is sufficient for any possible event because N and N` are obviously the entire set!

in terms of custody going to the 'better' parent, what about the views of the child? what if they're 14 years old, and want to live with one parent in particular?

and what are those 'merits'?

You can weight one of the criteria to be "children's opinion."

Look, the law is pretty simple in the statute book. What complicates it are all those fuzzy little bits added on by busybody judges not content with judging and usurping the lawmaking role.

I want to give you an example of stupid complexity

Sexual crimes. Most of them overlap.

Why have 3 categories of rape? Why not have ONE crime called rape (and one for statutory rape), but then have different sentence guidelines for the age of the victim. See straight away that simplifies things.

Think set theory. You can either say "books, journals, newsletters" - or you can say "written materials", and all the first are contained within.

Don't blame me because you fail at comparison. Physics was a totally inapt comparison to law, because physics does not seek to regulate reality, it reflects it. Newton's laws are not there to regulate how forces operate, they simply reflect what are scientific facts about how the forces operate. Physics laws are merely descriptiive. The law, on the other hand, is a construct, a set of rules created to regulate human interaction. It is essentially normative and proscriptive.



So what?! What sort of integrity does a system like yours have vadinho? You want people to abide by laws which are too vague, unduly restrictive and result in harsh and unfair outcomes? Shades of culpability, modes of participation, defences....these concepts exist to enable the court to accurately measure the level of responsibility that should be attributed to any given individual. If you don't care for that, why do you bother with any differentiation at all? Instead, argue for a single general all-encompassing principle, something like 'you do wrong, you die'. It's the same.

Here is what your problem is. You don't actually know why we have rules about most things, or if you do know, you are willing to disregard them. This means that you are willing to sacrifice fairness and justice in favour of....being concise. That is simply bizarre.

As far as I'm concerned vadinho, your submachine gun (if it even accurately reflects what you are proposing) is not fit for purpose.

And that is exactly the problem. It is not the province of law to regulate EVERYTHING, it regulates specific things, specific conduct, specific actions and interactions. The basic premise is that you are free to do whatever you want, unless it is prohibited by law.

Because an accused who fucked a 2 year old should not be able to argue that the toddler consented, whereas such a defence should be available in relation to an adult victim.

What 3 categories of rape are you talking about?

If all that you are complaining about is excessive wording in legislation, then your complaint is stylistic and not really worth jumping up and down about since most people will agree with you that the language can be simplified. that is quite different though to what you have been arguing up to know, which is that law per se can be simplified.

Fucking lulz!

A very good argument could be made that it is indeed more complex. Firstly, the laws of physics have no analogy in the realm of behaviour, because perception, cognition and action are based on information-processing mechanisms, not laws. Sure, these mechanisms reduce to physical laws, but the correct level of explanation is that of the mechanism, not the laws of physics, because there is not a systematic correspondence between "mental" types and physical types, even though "mental" tokens do map onto physical tokens -- we're not dualists after all! ^_^

Secondly, the mechanisms mentioned above are nowhere near as clearly understood as the laws of physics.

Uhmm that doesn't even make sense.

So perception, cognition, and action aren't governed by the laws of physics?

Are you suggesting the existence of the soul there gummi?

Bullshit. I know LOTS about the history of laws. I can tell you that murder derives from an old english word with a funny curved t with a circle at the bottom. I can tell you about Dracon and Alfred the Great. I can tell you that a jury initially consisted of WITNESSES to the character of the accused. I can talk about Inns of Court etc etc.

What it all comes down to is this: law is an instrument of politics. Nothing more, nothing less. It isn't God's word, it isn't sacred. The principles of the Magna Carta are no greater nor lesser than the fines set forth in the Sale of Liquor Act for an unqualified manager.

Also another thing - you went after me when I hastily wrote a couple of laws that took about five seconds.

Do you honestly think it's fair that people should have to study FOUR YEARS to become lawyers? Shouldn't the law be accessible? I don't need to go to seminary for four years to go to church... or comm une with god...

no, he's just suggesting that the level of physical laws is not the correct level of explanation for human behaviour.

For example, a solider terminate has a very well developed jaw structure. To provide an explanation for the terminate jaw being the way it is, we can provide an explanation in terms of DNA and protein system or even micro physical laws of physics. However, by providing an explanation at this level, we no only lose information, but we also lose a lot of explanatory power which we could use for generating hypotheses and predictions about where such jaws would be found in other species. The correct level of explanation would be a higher level explanation were the explanation takes into account factors such as macro-level animal behavior, terminate social structure, and ecology etc.

Nobody is suggesting dualism. Gummi is just arguing against extreme physical reductionism.

No, I specifically said that was not the case.

I said the correct level of explanation for p, c and a is not grounded in the laws of physics, but in that of info-processing mechanisms.

"Greedy reductionism", which you're advocating, just doesn't help explain the phenomenon of interest.

It does. If we had a computer of infinite power, we could model human behaviour using physical laws only (bar the uncertainty percentage)

The laws of physics can explain not merely human behaviour, but also what occurs in the heart of stars, the behaviour of the Chur-lachi, a hypothetical species with four brains and an emotional range an order of magnitude greater than us, the behaviour of sperm in vacuum, and the interactions between fluids in a hyperdrive coolant system.

I am not arguing FOR extreme reductionism, but I am saying that we CAN explain any behaviour using the laws of physics and as such the potential complexity (measured by potential combinations) is far greater.

The total range of potential human behaviours is obviously far less than the total range of physical reactions, is it not? So which is the more complex system?

You've royally missed the point.

We could (potentially*) predict the time course of an individual's behaviour based purely on the physical state of an individual (and, of course his immediate environment) but we lose a LOT of explanatory power by restricting ourselves to this level of analysis.

I also take exception to the idea that "[t]he total range of potential human behaviours is obviously far less than the total range of physical reactions, is it not?". For example, there are theoretically an infinite number of routes via which i can touch my nose with my right index finger :>

* I say potentially because if the brain is a non-linear dynamic system, precise prediction is not possible.

But a human is a subset of physical reality so obviously the infinity of potential human actions is a smaller infinity than potential physical reactions.

Where H = human reactions, H + H` > H, obviously.

Again, YES WE DO LOSE A LOT OF EXPLANATORY POWER. IT IS YOU MISSING THE POINT. I was saying that physical laws ARE more complex than human behaviour. That's the sole issue here.

definition: what young drunk horny dudes do in bars

I love the fact you find that
I was reading Disclosure Act notes today. What's your take? It seems focused on prosecution disclosure, but what are the responsibilities of the defence? Do they have to present information on the alibis etc that will be used before the trial?

dude!

it all comes back to onus of proof, the state has to prove its case against the individual, the defendant doesn't have to prove anything, and there is no duty to disclose its defence either (practically speaking there have been some small in-roads into this principle)

it's not like a civil case where the parties are equal

That's what I got from the quick readings I did, but wanted to check with you

Well yet another thing to change when I become Emperor!r

Do you know how you fail an exam question? By vomiting up everything you know without actually answering the question. That's what you just did.



The law is accessible for you to read it and inform yourself about it. To practice it is a skill for which one needs training.

BG you must be masochistic to start a thread like this

look what you are inflicting on yourself and on the universe!

there will be no end to it!

vad..if you're so passionate about laws and the law, why didn't/don't you study it?

(properly)

that way you might gain a deeper view/understanding of it...

btw, that is a silly silly thing to say

there is no such thing as a "smaller infinity"

please

also bear in mind that our physical world has been molded and shaped by the expression of human mind and consciousness - which is infinite - and infinitely complex

i know

but he is forever chiming in with these wacky ideas about law, and every now and then his wacky idea needs to get properly thrashed out in a thread of its own. not that i expect him to resile from his untenable arguments....

fair enough BG - btw where actually are you at the moment, and what are you up to???

There is actually a mathematical theorem positing that there do exist a scale of infinities, but that is neither here nor there in this discussion because Vadz conflates issues of scale with that of explanatory difficulty i.e. there are more particles in the universe than in a person's body, therefore the universe is much more difficult to understand. Which I suppose makes mountains more difficult to understand than, for example, highly sophisticated circuit boards?

The question at hand in regards to the thread at hand is whether we have as deep an understanding of human behaviour as we do the physical laws governing the universe. And the answer is certainly not.

There is a related, but independent, question of whether human behaviour is more complex than the physical laws of the universe, and the only way one can answer that is by rigidly defining what one means by "complex". It certainly isn't scale, because then the question becomes ridiculously trivial, where big = more complex.

I think the question boils down to what extent can we say the explanatory framework of pure physics is able to explain the property of agency. In my opinion -- and most philosophers of science would agree with me on this issue -- is that physics is utterly bankrupt in explaining agency, and to do so we require mechanistic explanations based on the principles of information processing.

Also, not sure what you mean by the human mind being "infinitely complex" JH, but it all sounds a but magical/spiritual for my liking

well, I find your explanations a bit too material/physical for my liking

anyway, I accept all the scientific points you make, the problem we have is the analogy vadinho made, which was inapt and irrelevant to begin with, discussion of which will only trivialise the subject matter involved.

still at Cam, handing my thesis in tomorrow, then sitting 3 exams in about 4 weeks, currently a hermit buried in books