from Hacker News

An Algorithmic View of Law

by iciac on 6/27/20, 7:26 AM with 1 comments

• by newyankee on 6/27/20, 7:50 AM

  Law is a field that at least in a place like India is intentionally kept opaque and unnecessarily complex and if we follow the 80-20 rule then 80% of cases are needlessly taking much longer than needed. The spirit of the law gets killed because at the end of the day the rich and powerful can get away and for an average person it is always the case of justice delayed is justice denied.

  If we have algorithmic definitions and every edge case covered (mostly hypothetical based on first principle definitions) a lot of this can be cleared.

  However whenever subjectivity creeps in, which is what 90% of law thrives on, the powers that be will not let it be simplified for per them Human interpretations will always be paramount.

  Indian SC judges have a fetish for English language and sometimes write judgements with 1000s of pages, 900 of which are actually unnecessary.