Terry Minor Legal Clarity

Temporality is also crucial for predictability. If a contractor, police officer or court has to decide at time 1, it would generally make little sense to determine the predictability of the respective law at time 2. Instead, predictability is more naturally judged when the actor has actually decided.76 But not always. A doctrine might hope to encourage decision-making at the right time, thereby punishing decisions made at the wrong time or in the wrong way. For example, if there is no need to rush, a doctrine of clarity could assess unpredictability at the time when the decision-maker actually acted to punish decision-makers who chose to act when only imperfect information was available.77 Questions of temporality therefore lead to the question of how to encourage optimal access to information: A longer delay would have allowed for additional research or reflection. This improves predictability. To get a better idea of the different ways in which the law can define clarity, consider the widespread practice of reducing states of clarity to numerical confidence levels.34 For example, the authors distinguish between a confidence level of “80-20” and a confidence level of “60-40”.35 These expressions provide a quick and easy way to communicate confidence levels. But on closer inspection, their meaning is unclear. What do these numbers mean? Moreover, a court concerned with predictability often has good reason to be interested in the views of interpreters who are manifestly wrong.

For example, a court dealing with predictability must think about the powers – such as precedents – available to the actor dealing with prediction. On the other hand, a judge faced with uncertainty would have reason to focus solely on the views of epistemic “peers” or “friends,” as these actors would better assist the adjudicating court in understanding the correct answer to the question under consideration.81 Thus, the objectives of any doctrine of clarity effectively dictate the relevant scope of the jurisprudence. Security doctrines might pay limited attention to disagreements where one party has a proven track record of error. In contrast, doctrines that emphasize predictability should often deal with disagreements per se, even when one party is wrong, because some actors must or must make predictions without the luxury of disqualifying authoritarian views that turn out to be wrong. A positive experience with a qualified team of professionals, excellent legal advice and services to answer all my questions and concerns. Excellent customer training seminars. I have recommended it and will continue to recommend it. -TMW In general, the idea of legal clarity can be implemented in two different ways: it can explain one`s own confidence in the right answer (certainty) or the likelihood that other actors will reach a common answer (predictability). The distinction between certainty and predictability largely corresponds to the difference between first- and third-person perspectives on a particular topic.36 These two forms of clarity often point in the same direction and can converge.

If we easily come to a confident conclusion, we can expect others to do the same. Conversely, we can assume that the problems we face will prove equally unclear to others.37 Under the doctrine of qualified immunity, law enforcement officers are generally exempt from civil liability unless their actions violate “clearly established legal or constitutional rights that a reasonable person would have known.” 165 This test refutes the idea of legal clarity in terms of reasonable disagreement: if a plaintiff`s right is “clearly established,” a “reasonable” defendant should be aware of it.166 On the other hand, when the law is not clear, an official and a court reasonably disagree. Courts are primarily concerned with legal clarity based on objectives recognized by law, such as the desire to transfer powers to specialized decision-makers or to mitigate the unfairness of unexpected court decisions. This section argues that these objectives should also determine the form of clarity that the courts will ultimately adopt. To continue the examples, a doctrine of clarity aimed at empowering technical experts might be different from a doctrine focused on mitigating unpleasant surprises. Start with leniency, where the relevant actors are potential defendants. This group is heterogeneous and has very different abilities to predict legal outcomes. Some so-called “white-collar” laws involve commercial interests and are therefore more likely to apply to well-heeled defendants and corporations that have access to legal advice and resources to build a strong defense.208 These advised actors may be able to predict legal outcomes, including by keeping abreast of relevant case law.209 In contrast, The great momentum of the criminal law imposes a legal burden on inexperienced individuals who do not have the realistic ability to arrest relevant offenders. Articles of association or obtain useful legal advice.