In those strange days of the Covid pandemics, most governments have introduced many new laws to govern our daily life. And sometimes they seem to have forgotten some age-old advice about effective laws:
“Unnecessary laws weaken necessary laws” (Montesquieu)
“Too soft laws are not followed and too harsh laws are not enforced” (Franklin)
I particularly find the second piece of wisdom particularly applicable in a country like France where lawmakers seems to love producing new laws on everything on a regular basis, which makes thinks difficult to follow. Moreover a lot of those laws don’t get really applied because they are either too soft or too hard.
Lawmaking is a change management exercise (why edict a new law if there is nothing to change?). It is not always performed with the right approach or with the right balance to be really be effective. Reverting to age-old wisdom in the matter would be a good recommendation for lawmakers.
