Laws are only as good as the people that follow them and/or the people that enforce them. Thankfully, for most people, ~99% of law enforcement respond pretty reasonably ~99% of the time. IMO, the exact words in the criminal code aren't going to make much of a difference to the <1% of situations where 'reasonable' is lacking.
Evaluating bizarre/singular examples are not the best way to evaluate whether a law makes sense or is fairly written. To some extent, these one-off situations are a bit of necessary evil, as it's pretty tough for legislators to account for every single possible scenario - as necessary, these ambiguities are clarified by the courts. We should each be more worried about being struck by lightning than becoming one of the guinea pigs who have to experience the sliver of unanticipated draconian application of a law.
At the end of the day, all of our laws, charter of rights and freedoms, social norms, and even the idea of 'fairness' are nothing more than shared myths that we all believe in. For the most part, these are universally beneficial to all, but the cost is, that in the course of our lifetimes we will each experience between 0 and 1 totally insane, unfair, ridiculous situations that result in major inconvenience or hardship to our lives.
Additionally, we'll each be 'hard-done-by' another ~5-50 times where the sum of these myths don't apply 'fairly' to us as individuals. It could be that we've done absolutely nothing wrong, but face minor consequences (a totally incorrect parking ticket that costs your $40 or a bunch of time straightening out, or a lack of enforcement on your neighbour for never shovelling their walks or playing loud music late at night, or yes, spending 5-30 minutes to prove that you're not driving while impaired).
Or, it could be that we've done something 'technically wrong', but the consequences seem disproportionate and unfair (a speeding ticket for 4kph over the limit, or losing your license for some period of time because you drove after 1 strong beer). These are simply a cost of being in society - sometimes we pay our $400 and move on, sometimes we have to spend a couple hours going down to see a JP to quash a bad ticket, sometimes we have to simply accept that we can't control our neighbours behaviour, and sometimes we have to leave a burning bag of dog poop at their doorstep to create our own moment of justice.
The good news is that we each have a lot of control over whether we find ourselves at the low or high end of my arbitrary ranges, based on how strictly we follow laws, and how we behave when interacting with law enforcement and other members of society. A bit of silliness is inevitable, but we all have the power to limit it, by simply not being A-holes.
I qualified my second sentence with 'for most people' for good reason - your odds of running into an unreasonable situation shoot way up if you're 'driving while black' or 'walking while aboriginal' (perhaps double or triple the ranges above). Unfortunately, the only way to reduce the disproportionate occurences seems to be the passing of time, though sometimes we find ways to accelerate that progress.
|