If a law is new but its interpretation is vague, can the courts directly ask the drafters the intent and official interpretation of their law? The problem with old laws seems to be that many times the drafters aren't alive to tell what their intent or interpretation is of a given law, but in case a law is new and the drafter or drafters are alive, can courts ask them about the interpretation and intent behind a law?
No. Under U.S. Jurisprudence, any vagueness in a criminal law must be given an interpretation favorable to the people, rather than the government, since the government had the opportunity to make their intentions clear when drafting the law. Additionally, the U.S. Constitution has what is called the &quot;Vagueness Doctrine&quot; which renders vague laws at any level of government to be unenforceable (Found in the 5th and 14th Amendment as an interpretation of the Due Process clauses). The quickest way to overturn the court's ruling is for a legislature to pass an amended law that defines the vague terms in terms that are better understood and can give the courts a proper interpretation of what should happen, however, no one who was charged under the law can be recharged under the new definition.
No. In order to practice law, one must establish an attorney-client relationship. Participation in Internet forums absolutely does not establish an attorney-client relationship. Everyone involved in law spends a disproportionate amount of time disclaiming this, so nobody inside the field will be confused on this point. I believe this is also directly stated in the Terms of Service. And as Jen notes, upvoting/downvoting is not even agreeing with the legal validity of the answer. Take the tour or read help pages for what voting means. It's perfectly conceivable for a psychic who knows how to sway people could write a better voted answer than three lawyers.
There is a relevant Q&amp;A here about how ex post facto is defined in the United States. Not all law is about crime, and that includes NY rent control laws; violating them does not lead directly to a criminal prosecution, hence a sufficiently strict definition of ex post facto cannot apply to them. And such a sufficiently strict definition has been the explicit one since 1798, when the Supreme Court ruled in Calder vs. Bull ("law that makes an action done before the passing of the law, and which was innocent when done, criminal [...] law that aggravates a crime, makes it greater than it was [...] law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime", etc.). Notice that Article 1 Section 9 prohibits Congress (i.e., the Federal Government) from doing exactly the same thing, so if ex post facto refers to any kind of law, then there could not be any retroactive laws passed in the United States, period. However, the Supreme Court has apparently already set further, more recent, precedents, making it clear that this rule does not apply to tax law. I would assume in this case the intention is to retroactively extend the old law, i.e., if the old law expired on the 15th and the extension passes on the 20th, that extension will be retroactive to the 15th. If the extension then continues until a new law is in place, there will be no time period under which one or the other did not apply. Despite the wording in the news article, I do not think the intention is to make the new law retroactive, only the extension of the old one, for the simple reason that the legislature would never agree to pass such a brand new law later and no matter what it contains say it will be retroactive back to the original expiration date of a law it replaces even after they already extended that until there was a new law. That is borderline non-sensical. The Daily News blurb certainly makes it sound like it might be that way, but I think this is a bit of intentional obfuscation -- the way in which a partial quote is used in the first paragraph is indicative, and the Daily News is, well, the Daily News.
In practice, common law courts turn to academic writing, either law review articles or legal treatises or the &quot;Restatements of Law&quot;, on a regular, but infrequent basis. These sources are not binding sources of legal authority but can shed persuasive light on the logic behind a legal rule or the course of action that has been taken in previous similar cases. In civil law countries (i.e. those not descended from the legal system of England), there are far fewer circumstances in which court precedents are sources of law. Much of the gap in credible sources for how ambiguities in the statutory law should be interpreted in these countries comes from academic writing. In a typical civil law country, a leading law professor has more impact on how the law is interpreted than senior appellate court judges. Again, academic writings are not binding legal authority, but in the absence of alternative sources for material interpreting statutes, they are very persuasive.
While there are certainly statutory and procedural vehicles for sanctions, they are almost never requested or allowed when moved for, and are almost never imposed by judges. Something very severe needs to occur and not just your typical discovery violation ("speaking objections" during depositions, being late with responses, failure to cite to affidavits, affidavits citing conjecture rather than fact, et). It would have to be something quite serious....like misleading the court or directly failing to comply with a direct order or ruling on a motion. It is exceedingly rare. It is most seen in Federal Court.
When they start giving legal advice ... unless your PA is a lawyer. In a nutshell, legal advice has the following characteristics: Requires legal knowledge, skill, education and judgment Applies specific law to a particular set of circumstances Affects someone's legal rights or responsibilities Creates rights and responsibilities in the advice-giver Unlike legal information - such as information posted on a street sign - legal advice proposes a specific course of action a client should take. For instance, it's the difference between telling someone what to do (legal advice) as opposed to how to do it (legal information). For your specific questions Can they research the CC&amp;Rs, Bylaws or other such states, federal statues to help me better understand the letter? Researching and even summarising is not legal advice. If they give opinions on what you should do as a result of that research it is legal advice. Can they write up a response letter that I would look at and approve ... Yes ... or if minor enough they could just respond? It depends on what's involved. If it is a purely factual response (&quot;Is this your car?&quot;) then this is ok. If it is legal advocacy, it isn't. Putting aside the legalities; how does your PA feel about you suing them if they stuff any of this up? If I was your PA, I wouldn't be acting as your agent without an indemnity.
No. The law would be void for vagueness. Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391 (1926): [T]he terms of a penal statute [...] must be sufficiently explicit to inform those who are subject to it what conduct on their part will render them liable to its penalties… and a statute which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application violates the first essential of due process of law. The example of the "well known but hidden stop sign" appears to allow for arbitrary prosecution and should also be void.
tl;dr: Statutory preambles are typically non-binding, and some states have laws to this effect (e.g. Florida, Illinois, Iowa, etc.). The most consistent interpretation I've found is that when the body text isn't clear, the preamble might be helpful in determining context and legislative intent. For example, in Shea v. Clinton, 850 F. Supp. 2d 153 (D.C. 2012), the district court said that where statutory text is ambiguous, courts may look to the preamble and legislative history for clarification. This extends beyond the realm of statutes. In Catalina Marketing v. Coolsavings.com, Inc., 289 F.3d 801 (Fed. Cir. 2002), the court found that considering limitations in the preamble of a patent should be context-specific.