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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that English law should treat the legislature's decision as having determined the VAT rate, rather than leaving discretion to tax collectors or judges.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Statutes inevitably contain gaps and ambiguities that Parliament itself cannot foresee, requiring interpretive discretion to determine legal meaning.
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    • 2.Hart's 'open texture' doctrine establishes that rule of law is preserved, not undermined, when judges exercise bounded discretion to settle indeterminate legal rules.
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    • 3.Treating parliamentary text as fully determinate obscures that judicial interpretation already constitutes a form of delegated lawmaking inherent to legal systems.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Dworkin's integrity principle holds that law must be interpreted to cohere with underlying moral principles, not merely enacted textual commands.
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    • 2.If Parliament fixes a VAT rate through ambiguous or poorly drafted legislation, mechanical deference produces outcomes Parliament itself would reject as contrary to fiscal intent.
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    • 3.Genuine fidelity to legislative supremacy sometimes requires judges to deviate from the literal text to honor the legislature's actual normative purpose.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.The taxing power is allocated to Parliament.
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    • 2.Rule of law values are secured when taxpayers, enforcement officials, and judges are all bound by Parliament's decision.
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    • 3.A system permitting tax collectors or judges to deviate from the legislated rate would undermine these rule of law values.
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