Die Juristerei und die Satzzeichen

The situation was even worse in the law, where a long English tradition held that punctuation marks were not actually part of statutes (and, therefore, courts could not consider punctuation when interpreting them). Not surprisingly, lawmakers took a devil-may-care approach to punctuation. Often, the whole business of punctuation was left to the discretion of scriveners, who liked to show their chops by inserting as many varied marks as possible.

Quelle: Clause and Effect

Deshalb sollte man die Verfassungs- und Gesetzestexte alle paar Jahrzehnte wieder neu schreiben. Juristen können so gleich doppelt beschäftigt werden: Einerseits beim Ausarbeiten der neuen Texte, andererseits bei der Interpretation dieser.