Other State Courts, not gov't agencies, have final say over ambiguous laws - Ohio top court

[The Heretic]

Courts, not gov't agencies, have final say over ambiguous laws - Ohio top court

Ohio's top court on Thursday ruled the state's courts do not need to defer to agency interpretations of ambiguous laws, delivering a victory to an engineering firm backed by a conservative legal group seeking an end to that same practice at the federal level.

www.reuters.com

This could be interesting for the ATF if the policy of Chevron deference goes to the SCOTUS and the SCOTUS upholds what the Ohio state court ruled. Or anything to that effect.

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[Yarome]

You would think it's common sense since any agency or body is obviously going to want to interpret any law of the courts to mean exactly what they want it to mean to fit their goals/agenda... instead of working within the framework of the law. That just sucks, right?

On the surface it's pure lunacy to presume otherwise.

We haven't seen any resultant challenges yet, post EPA determination, but I'm holding out hope SCOTUS will take up this recent petition and we'll see the first implementation of that case law.


* Kinda topic adjacent, but reminded me of the "funny" with the state of OR recently. When the judge read the plain text of one provision of 114.... that was as clear as a bell to anyone with a basic understanding of English.... the states arguement was, "that's one way to interpret it, but...."

 

[titsonritz]

No way man, unelected power hungry bureaucrats should have final say over everything.

 

[po18guy]

"Reasonableness" is the legal standard. If the law does not clearly define the threshold of legality, and clearly specify lawful restrictions, it is unreasonable and thus, an unjust law. Such ambiguous laws lead to inconsistent enforcement and penalties. The founders, using English Common Law as a basis, were incredibly wise. They founded a nation of laws and judges, not of men/kings/dictators - which they had just shed blood to evict.

In our day, we see that the constitution has become an obstacle in the way of scheming dictators and thus the push is on for stacking the court with subservient judges. It is a subversive process and we have certainly seen enough of that in recent decades.

 

[wired]

You all seem to be assuming the courts will be any different.

 

[The Heretic]

You all seem to be assuming the courts will be any different.

There is a better chance of that than there is a chance of changing the political process and/or the people involved in that process.