It requires great
experience, as well as the command of a perspicuous diction, to
frame a law in such clear and precise terms, as to secure it from
ambiguous expressions, and from all doubts and criticisms upon its
meaning " Kent, 460.
The following extract from a speech of Lord Brougham, in the
House of Lords, confesses the same difficulty:
There was another subject, well worthy of the consideration of
government during the recess, the expediency, or rather the
absolute necessity, of some arrangement for the preparation of
bills, not merely private, but public bills, in order that
legislation might be consistent and systematic, and that the
courts might not have so large a portion of their time occupied in
endeavoring to construe acts of Parliament, in many cases
unconstruable, and in most cases difficult to be construed." Law
Reporter, 1848, p. 525.
[6] This condemnation of written laws must, of course, be
understood as applying only to cases where principles and rights
are involved, and not as condemning any governmental
arrangements, or instrumentalities, that are consistent with natural
right, and which must be agreed upon for the purpose of carrying
natural law into effect.
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