[genneth]

This is doubly unpersuasive in any common law jurisdiction. The whole point of such a system is that the idea that the correct outcomes are easier to arrive at in the specific than the general, and that the codification happens after precedents.

Even in civil law systems the fact is that case law is a coexistent partner to the interpretation of texts.

The fact this guy is learning law should actually be a cause of not taking this very seriously. I would be more interested by a practitioner making the case. (I am not!) In fact, this applies strongly to the case he gives: I would bet no judge in Canada (outside of Quebec, maybe?) would take his argument seriously. The way he has approached this question honest smacks of ivory tower academia.

If you made be steelman the argument, it should be that the usual methods predate the era of formal methods, and that the overall system could be made better. Then one would have to explain better in an operationally important way for practitioners and workers in the system, usually by some convincing argument about time saved. Remember that arguments over definitions is a very small part of the time taken in the job!

[rfw300]

Exactly this. The Platonic ideal of statutory interpretation is the “no vehicles in the park” statute. It’s simple enough on the surface but you can think of an infinite number of edge cases that demand nuance (e.g. Scooters? A war memorial featuring a tank? A wheelchair?).

Enumerating and handling these cases in a formal mathematical sense is at best futile and at worst leads to absurd outcomes. Law isn’t made formally because lawyers don’t know how, it’s because intelligently applied common sense is an essential part of a sane legal system. [0]

[0] For what it’s worth, it’s not as if the formalism vs. common sense debate is actually settled in the legal sphere. See, e.g., the debate about textualism vs. legislative intent in American statutory interpretation. Even the textualist position lies much, much further along the spectrum than formal specification though, and it has its own problems.