How Judges Change the Meaning of Laws Over Time

The following is a fictional story about the colors of traffic lights and how unelected judges change the meaning of a law over time.

Many years ago, when cars were starting to show up on city streets, traffic lights were installed in every village. Some villages designated that a green light meant a car could proceed or go, and a red light meant that a car must stop and wait until the light turned green before it could proceed. Other villages designated that red meant “GO” and green meant “STOP”. It was so confusing for travelers.

While there was a general recognition that there should be a standard traffic light for all the country and many villages had changed their traffic lights to be consistent with what was becoming the standard, a few villages refused to change. Representatives in the legislature passed a law mandating that red meant stop and green meant go. The people overwhelmingly agreed that the new law was a good thing. The wording of the law was simple and clear. It said, “Red will mean stop and green will mean go for all traffic lights in every village.”

For many years there was not a problem as every village complied with red meant stop and green meant go. One village decided that it was going to use red-violet to mean stop and blue-green to mean go. A traveler to this village was confused. He challenged the color change in court. The court heard his case but the judge ruled that red-violet was still red and blue-green was still green. A few years later, another village decided to use violet for stop and blue for go. When that change went to the courts, a judge ruled that violet is close enough to red-violet and blue is close enough to blue-green and, therefore, it is permissible. “After all,” said the judge, “since red-violet has been ruled to be acceptable, it only makes sense that violet is acceptable since red-violet has violet in the name and that has been ruled on already. And likewise, for blue-green. And besides, there was precedent.”

The judge was praised for being progressive and not being constrained by the historical meaning of the words, after all, words change over time and the law is a living document. Some originalist judges – those who interpreted the words of the law to mean what they originally meant - argued that red meant red and green meant green.

A few years go by, a village decided to make blue-violet mean stop and blue-violet mean go. It was so very confusing. A judge ordered that the village change blue to mean stop and violet to mean go. As a progressive judge, he viewed his likes and dislikes as always being consistent with society's likes and dislikes. It became the law of the land. Until, one village decided to make red-violet mean go and blue-green to mean stop. Once again, a judge said it was allowable because violet is essentially the same as red-violet and blue is essentially the same as blue-green. And besides, there was precedent for this and he started shouting some Latin word "stare decisis" as if it was some magical chant.

One hundred years after the enactment of the traffic light law, a village changed its traffic lights so that red meant go and green meant stop. Again, a judge ruled -  based on precedent  - that this was allowed. And furthermore, in keeping with the original intent of the law, all traffic lights throughout the land must be consistent. And that is how red became to mean go and green became to mean stop.