Law cannot be Fluid

Mike Duggan can't run for mayor of Detroit...for now. Yesterday's ruling by a Michigan Appeals Court has declared as much, and until the State Supreme Court is called look into the matter that is where it sits. For now, the most interesting discussion of the issue may not be over Duggan's candidacy itself but of the legal questions behind the ruling.

Stephen Henderson of the the Detroit Free Press says that he respects the court's literal ruling yet feels it violates the 'inclusive intent' of Michigan election law. Not being lawyers, we're not certain what he means by that, but we have our suspicions. We suspect that Mr. Henderson, as do so many of the liberal bent, believe that the law should be fluid or 'alive', as is our Constitution according to their view.

But what's the point of fluid law, of laws in motion? The only realistic approach to such a scheme of order can only be chaos, can't it? If the law is allowed to flow according to the will of those immediately involved with it, in this situation Mr. Duggan, how can we have fairness and justice? The Appeals Court has said that the Detroit Charter is unambiguous on the point; isn't that what we want in the law, proclamations which are so well enunciated as to be beyond interpretation? Isn't that the only real way to have every citizen equal before the law?

If the law is bad, there are mechanisms in place to change it. But it shouldn't be changed while the game is in play; that would be like changing baseball rules to have runners must circle the bases clockwise while one is caught between second and third. The game could not be played seriously without respect for the rules as they are whilst it is being played. You may well, for its own good, alter the rules between matches so that everyone who plays later can understand it and play it as best they can. To do so during a match would mock the very sportsmanship and fairness which sports are supposed to promote.

In the same way fluid law mocks the whole process of fairness and justice. If the Charter needs altering, it must come later, not while an issue is in play, and not by courts and their clients seeking whatever they may want simply because they want it.

If that isn't fair to Duggan, and arguably it may not be, the best which can be done is to fix things for the future. Yet as even Duggan and his supporters ought to have been able to predict that the courts might well see things as they have, it hardly seems credible that the whole thing treats him wrongly.

We need unambiguous law. Only our freedom will suffer without it. Our need for the greatest possible and rational freedom is far more important than any potential injustice towards Detroit mayoral candidates in 2013.