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n a democracy, the objective of laws is to serve the best
interests of the people andreflect their highest aspirations. Laws
are the useful, i.e., problem-solving, meansofgovernment by which
the endsof government are attained. Since laws have the samegeneral
characteristics as all other useful products, they, too, can be
designed andimproved by the same quality methods used to design and
optimize other products.
EVERY LAW OF GOVERNMENT HAS THE FOLLOWING CHARACTERISTICS:
Letter of the Law
A law is a written order -- a set of instructions, or software--
that provides directions forhuman behavior. The entire written
content of a law is the "letter of the law," and it isnothing more
or less than the fixed arrangement of its words and punctuation.
Theletter of the law conveys the spirit of the law.
Spirit of the Law
Contained within the letter of the law is the purpose, or
intent, which is termed the "spiritof the law." For any given law,
the spirit of the law is the hoped-for change, or benefit,that the
law will produce, as predicted by the designers of the law. In
other words, lawsare toolsthat are intended to be useful. Since the
spirit of the law is the reason for its
existence, the letter of the law is subordinate to the
problem-solving intent of the law.
Sanctions
Laws are the forcible means by which a government achieves its
goals; they arecoercions, restrictions, prohibitions, or commands
for action that attempt to regulate orchange the behavior or status
of those individuals and institutions that are subject to
thelaw.
To encourage individuals and institutions to comply with the
law, each law has amechanism of enforcement, or authorized sanction
(the "carrot or stick"), that is applied
to accomplish the intent of the law. Subsidies, fines, and
imprisonment are examples ofmechanisms that may be used as the
forcible sanction of a law.
Costs
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All laws consume and divert resources. The costs to a government
for the creation andoperation of its body of laws are borne by the
people. To pay the direct costs of laws,governments create and
enforce additional laws (at additional cost to the people) toraise
revenue through sanctions such as taxes, fees, and fines.
There are nine principal costs of a law of government:
1) The cost of the research and design effort that is required
to create the law.
2) The cost of the legislature to conduct the legislative
process and perform legislative
oversight of the law.
3) The cost to promulgate the law, its amendments, and eventual
repeal.
4) The disbursement of funds from the treasury as specified by
the law.
5) The cost to enforce the law.
6) The cost to administer and interpret the law in the courts of
justice.
7) The cost of compliance: the time, labor, and funds that are
expended by those who
are required to comply with the law.
8) The opportunity cost, or the loss of opportunity for
individuals and institutions toconduct
alternative activities of high value, such as education or
research, because the
resources for those activities were instead applied to the
law.
9) The cost to assure and improve the quality of the law through
quality assurance
(QA) and quality improvement (QI) programs.
Side Effects
Laws, like all other human creations, may or may not be useful,
but they alwaysproduce unintended side effects. The parameters used
to measure the side effects oflaws are the human rights, living
standards, and quality of life standards of the people --any or all
of which may be unintentionally degraded when a law is
enforced.
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Performance
Since every law forces a change in the natural order of things
and, since every lawimposes restrictions, incurs costs, and
produces unwanted side effects, theperformance, or usefulness of
each law, in terms of its overall effect upon the well being
of the public, can be derived.
The performance of a law is, simply, the measure of the
problem-solving benefitof thelaw minus the measured sum of its
burdens(restrictions, costs, and side effects). If thenet benefit
(benefit minus burdens) is positive, the law is useful. If the net
benefit iszero, the law is useless. If the net benefit is negative,
the law is detrimental. For ademocracy, the only valid laws are
those whose net benefit is positive.
Fallibility
Laws are the product of human creative efforts and are therefore
fallible. They may failin their objective as a result of design
defects or become outmoded. They may alsoincur excessive costs or
produce unacceptable side effects. Fortunately, laws, likeevery
other human-made product, may be improved by design changes
(amendments)and they may be repealed when they are found to be less
than useful.
In a democracy, the ultimate purpose of laws is to solve or
mitigate the societalproblems that degrade or threaten to degrade
the liberty and well-being of the people,i.e., the "public good."
Clickhereto learn more about the parameters that define thepublic
good.
http://www.qualityoflaws.com/democracy/laws-of-government/characteristics-of-laws.aspx
http://www.qualityoflaws.com/democracy/the-public-good.aspxhttp://www.qualityoflaws.com/democracy/the-public-good.aspxhttp://www.qualityoflaws.com/democracy/the-public-good.aspxhttp://www.qualityoflaws.com/democracy/laws-of-government/characteristics-of-laws.aspxhttp://www.qualityoflaws.com/democracy/laws-of-government/characteristics-of-laws.aspxhttp://www.qualityoflaws.com/democracy/laws-of-government/characteristics-of-laws.aspxhttp://www.qualityoflaws.com/democracy/the-public-good.aspx
