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Nice that you go so deep into critique of the system, usually I expect lawyers to pretend it all makes perfect sense and defend even the most absurd segments of law. Nice to see something different. :]
Thanks!
It’s just as important for us to understand what’s not working (and why), as it is to know how it’s supposed to work in theory. You can’t fix it if you don’t know what’s broken.
You notice what he is pinning to the board?
“Reading this regulation w/o permission is punishable by (blocked by hands) years in…”
Why on earth did anyone give someone with no clue about criminal law authority to prescribe criminal penalties?
Because legislatures have found it expedient to delegate their lawmaking responsibilities to underinformed, underpaid civil servants?
Because when you’re managing the population of fish in a given lake (one of several you’ve got to deal with), 90%+ of the law is going to be written by having a bunch of experts come in and asking them what to do. When you need new regulations in a certain area year after year, it’s easier just to hire the experts full time to make the laws directly. And poaching and such things are considered criminal, so, you know, why not, right?* It makes sense until the regulatory agencies start doing things you never intended, and you don’t have the oversight to even realize they’re doing it.
*see the chapter above for the answer to this rhetorical question
It would probably be better to cut their criminal powers out, and where criminalization of practices is needed, having the legislature produce laws that cover the criminality of it, then have the regulatory agencies provide the definitions. I.e. “Poaching blah blah mens rea blah blah where poaching is defined by the Fish and Wildlife Organization’s current guidelines” but I don’t think it’s fair to say that everyone should have seen this problem coming. The system has had -some- merit.
Even that solution is prone to abuse. The Fish and Wildlife Organization could easily define poaching to be something completely different from its ordinary definition. For example: “Poaching shall include but not be limited to: hunting animals with a gun without a permit. Introducing elements into the ecosystem that would harm animals without a permit. Talking smack about the Fish and Wildlife Organization, its members, or its members’ mothers, or its members’ significant others.”