Legal Code In a Version Control System?

coldmist writes "Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Del.) is on the Senate Finance Committee, which just finished work on the health care bill. The committee recently rejected an amendment which would have required them to post the legislation for public viewing for 72 hours before it went to final vote. Several senators felt that the actual legal code would be too cryptic and complicated to be useful. Carper himself said, 'I don't expect to actually read the legislative language because reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I've ever read in my life.' So, why don't they put it in SVN (or some similar version control system) where people can tkdiff the changes (i.e. new legislation is in a branch) or output a patchset? If a bill is passed, it's merged into the trunk. It just seems so logical to me, yet I can't find any mention of doing this on the web. What do you think?"

Comments

If the legal code is too confusing

[selven]

CHANGE THE LAW. Keeping the bible in Latin worked only for the priests and keeping the law in legal speak is working only for the lawyers.

Re:If the legal code is too confusing

[jimicus]

So instead what winds up happening is the men and women voting for the law don't understand the law themselves.

It gets voted in and suddenly there's a bunch of consequences which they never envisioned because the law gets implemented more-or-less as written and if that's radically different to what was intended - tough.

This has already happened a few times in the UK with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act - local councils were given a bunch of snooping powers (which, we assume, were originally intended to help them weed out those who cheat council-administered benefits) are using them to track down the person who insists on putting paper in their glass recycling box.

Re:If the legal code is too confusing

[selven]

That's not the point. The bible was also read in Latin, after which the priest would helpfully interpret the Latin to the peasants in whatever way he wanted.

Re:If the legal code is too confusing

[agurk]

If programming languages was written in plain words we wouldn't need programmers, but the secret order of computer programmers refuse to do it that way - simple programming is not possible they claim. What they really are afraid of is the fact that normal humans (non programmers) could just diff the text to look for bugs and even make their own software.

PS! A lot of the people here at slashdot.org are members of this secret order so they will probably mod me down and try to shut me up - BUT justice will prevail.

Re:If the legal code is too confusing

[commodore64_love]

Power to the People!

What? I'm serious. Better to put the power in the hands of the people, than a priest class, lawyer class, or some other oligarchy.

Asking way too much of the lawyers.

[reiisi]

As PJ (over at Groklaw) likes to say, law is squishy.

Source code and law look a lot alike, but we have to remember that law is squishy.

We also should remember that lawyers are often seeking for an advantage for their clients (or constituents). This seeking for advantage runs counter to the work patterns of many of us who deal with free/open source stuff, but it is quite common in the legal world.

It would be a great tool for legislators who want the law to make sense, but such are too rare. The others would quickly find ways to pervert the tools.

Re:Lack of training/intelligence?

[palegray.net]

I think you missed the bigger issue:

... don't expect to actually read the legislative language ...

If United States Senators can't be bothered to read and comprehend the legislation they're voting on, then:

(1) why are they elected to posts that, as the most basic of job requirements, requires the ability to do so, and

(2) why haven't they been removed from office for complete and utter failure to serve the American people?

That's right, folks... your elected officials are attempting to pass legislation that will have massive consequences for our generation and several more to come, without having actually read the material they're about to vote on. Here's the best part: this is nonthing new. It's been the status quo for a huge chunk of Washington's electoral finest for longer than I've been alive. Outstanding work!

Re:Life is complex

[jonbryce]

You don't need to understand the linux kernel source to do some shopping in Konqueror. The kernel developers and GCC understand it perfectly, and that's what matters.

All of use are supposed to understand what the law says. Ignorance is not an excuse. But if Supreme Court judges can't even agree on what the law means, what hope is there for the rest of us?

Re:The legislative language isn't that important..

[massysett]

"Plain language version"? "Corrected"? "Translated"? "Legislation that is passed on"? What on earth are you talking about? This is horrifyingly wrong. There is no "plain language version". Legislation is not "translated". Committees report a bill with specific language; though it may be amended later (generally on the floor, or in conference) there is no "correction".

And "The legislative language isn't that important"? That is so amazingly, completely, and gravely wrong that I have no idea where to start debunking it.

Yes, I AM a lawyer and I work on issues involving legislation every single day, so I fully expect I will get modded down. The perils of crowdsourcing.

Re:Too early yet

[CodeBuster]

How is that different than the situation we have today?

The taxpayer would get stuck with all of the unpaid hospital bills (right now the hospitals eat them or try to make up the cost on those who have credit and can pay). Right now you only pay if you visit the hospital, but if the taxpayer has to pick up the tab then everyone pays regularly, even healthy people who rarely need hospital services. As bad as the present situation is this only makes it worse. The grandparents are correct: this bill is dishonest and the Democrats are pushing it dishonestly...period. Why do the Democrats shy away from having a head on debate about socialism and socialized medicine? Shouldn't they be proud of their socialism? Why do they try to sneak it through the back door? If their true position is too weak to stand up to real debate then they deserve to fail.