Appendix C: Legislation & Interpretation
Legislation is to a lawmaker what interpretation is to a judge. Judges interpret laws created by lawmakers. Legislation and Interpretation can be viewed as the same process but going in opposite directions.
The ideological structure that underlies each part of a law takes the form of a constant - variable - values. To see this, let us look at the factual aspect of a law. The four factual parts of a law are: - conduct,
- source,
- recipient, and
- circumstances.
Each of the foregoing are the constants. Associated with each constant is a variable. Each variable holds values. For instance, into the variable associated with the constant, 'source', can be placed the values, 'George' or 'citizens of the United States of America'. Into the variable associated with the constant, 'conduct', can be placed the values, 'running', 'killing', etc.
There are two directions of travel when the ideological structure consists of a constant - variable - values.
We can start at a general constant and travel to a particular value stored in its variable. This is deduction and legislation is an example of it. Legislators do deductions to make a law. They assign values to the constants.
We can also travel in the other direction
We can start at a particular value and travel to the general constant. This is induction and interpretation is an example of it. Judges do inductions to interpret a law. They assign constants to values.
