above. As has been said, the term “effect” is shorthand for the range of
individual effects that a law or an interpretation of a law will cause.
As has been explained already, a reference to a statute, a common law rule or a
meaning of an ambiguous provision “causing” an effect is shorthand to
designate the effect that it is predicted to cause. There is unfortunately, no sure
means of knowing which effects making or interpreting law will cause.
Obviously, this introduces considerable uncertainty to the task of forming law.
Evaluation
Causation, which has just been discussed, refers to the task where a maker or
interpreter of law has identified the effects that possible laws, or possible
interpretations of a law, will cause. When this has been done, the next task is
to value those predicted effects.
In this regard, each of these individual effects caused by a version of a statute
or by the meaning of an ambiguous provision possesses two connected and
important characteristics. It is either a cost or a benefit and it has a value. This
value is positive for a benefit and negative for a cost. This value may or many
not be able to be expressed in monetary terms and may or may not be capable
of being accurately measured or expressed in some other way.
It is possible in principle (but often not easy in practice) to add up all the
individual benefits, add up all the individual costs, then subtract total costs
from total benefits. The result is the net benefit of the total effect of the law or
interpretation, and thus of the law or meaning itself. Net benefit is an invaluable
concept because it constitutes a single measure of the value of a law or an
interpretation of law.
This notion that every statute and every meaning of an ambiguous yields a net
benefit can be illustrated using an expanded version of the tables above
depicting the options for making and interpreting law. First, each statute
causes an effect that yields a net benefit. So, Statute 0 causes Effect 0 that
yields Net Benefit 0, Statute 1 causes Effect 1 that yields Net Benefit 1 and so
on. This can all be set out in the following table:
Statutes
Effects
Net Benefit
Statute 0
Effect 0
Net Benefit 0
Statute 1
Effect 1
Net Benefit 1
Statute 2
Effect 2
Net Benefit 2
Statute n
Effect n
Net Benefit n
Figure 5.3 Statutes, Effects and Net Benefits
In a similar way, each meaning of an ambiguous provision causes an effect that
yields a net benefit. This can also be set out in a table:
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