A lesson in Law

Long term readers know that I work in a law enforcement . All of my work is with paper and it is hardly glamourous. I was surprised whem I was greeted back home with the title Inspector Beakerkin.

Most of the work can be resolved in less then ten minutes if everything is in order.
If what I need is not there I send out a requst for the evidence . My job is to prepare the case for a final inspection. Rarely, I issue a denial and most of the times it is an obvious interpretation of the law. Even rarer I will have to render a denial with a legal opinion. I do not like to issue denials but it is part of my job.

I also do not like to tangle with attorneys. However my boss told me " Never assume the attorneys opinion is more valid then your own and never be intimidated by titles". Most attorneys do excellent work but there are exceptions and I read their
correspondence with reserved respect but not awe.

We operate under the principle hit the opposition with everything in our arsenal. My original question was are we pilling on. My boss and cowkers assured me use every angle that you can in writing your opinion.

I wrote a lengthy opinion with six reasons for denial. Reasons one, two and three firmly grounded in precedent. Reasons four , five and six were not covered by precedent so I removed them from the final draft. My boss asked me why they were removed. I explained that there is no legal precedent in this area . Thus in the absence of precedent the tactic was unusual but apparently not illegal. My boss asked me a question I did not consider. " Is there anything in the law that says that tactic is legal". Perplexed I said " no the area has not been adressed but my job is to enforce the law not interpret it". My boss said " our job is to interpret the law to the best of our ability. Cases like this establish precedent place the deleted sections back in . I asked if we could ask the most senior member of management if the deleted sections were a solid interpretation of the law. The senior most member of management agreed with the original version.

In reality the court has zero reason to get to reasons four , five and six . The hearing only needs one reason to uphold a denial. Yet allowing the tactic to go unchallenged would set another type of precedent.

Always bear this in mind the fact that a law does not explicitly state something is illegal does not infer legality.