> Judges do what their name implies - make judgment calls. I find it re-assuring that judges get different answers under different scenarios, because it means they are listening and making judgment calls.

I disagree - law should be the same for everyone. Yes sometimes crimes have mitigating curcumstances and those should be taken into account. However that seems like a separate question of what is and is not illegal.

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sarchertech 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Laws are written to be interpreted and applied by humans. They aren’t computer programs. They are full of ambiguity. Much of this is by design because there are too many possible edge cases to design a fully algorithmic unambiguous legal system.

	▲	bawolff an hour ago \| parent [-]
		True, but its not a free for all. Judges (especially in a common law juridsiction) are supposed to be consistent and interpret laws following certain principles. There are more right and less right interpretations - thus we can grade judges on how well they do their job.

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NoahZuniga 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The thing is, Laws do not forsee in all cases, and language is not completely objective, so you cannot avoid judgement calls. One example is computer hacking, which in many jurisdictions is specified in very vague terms.

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NoahZuniga 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Another example is that in the Netherlands, there's a crime called "valsheid in geschriften" which exists to make it easy to prosecute fraud. It states that if you create a document with false information with the intent to use that document to deceive, you can get up to 5 years of jail time or some really big fine. Is lying on a paper insurance form to get a cheaper premium breaking this law? This doesn't seem clear cut to me.

	▲	6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
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	▲	thaumasiotes 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> This doesn't seem clear cut to me. ...why not? By your wording, that would be one of the clearest-cut legal cases you could imagine.

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matheusmoreira 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> law should be the same for everyone

Nah. Too often their "crimes" are actually basic freedoms that they just find it profitable to deny. So many laws are bought and paid for by corporations. There is no need to respect them or even recognize them as legitimate, let alone make them universal.

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cucumber3732842 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The law is rife with words and phrasing that make legality dependent upon those subjective mitigating factors.

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6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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