A great lesson I have learned recently is being able to determine what is a law and what isn't. Do you know what your state constitution states what is required to become law? Have you ever read your state constitution? Are you like most people in your state and didn't even realize your state had a constitution? Probably not if you're part of this group but lets get back to what is required for a law to become a law.
I live in Washington state and our constitution states the following in Article II:
SECTION 18 STYLE OF LAWS. The style of the laws of the state shall be: "Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Washington." And no laws shall be enacted except by bill.
Ok, so inorder for a law to be considered a law by our constitution this "enacting clause" must be in place.
Consider this then... recently I was charged with violating RCW 46.10.015 and it contents in part follow:
http://search.leg.wa.gov/
<A name=rcw46.16.010>RCW 46.16.010</A>
Licenses and plates required -- Penalties -- Exceptions. (Effective until July 1, 2004.)
(1) It is unlawful for a person to operate any vehicle over and along a public highway of this state without first having obtained and having in full force and effect a current and proper vehicle license and display vehicle license number plates therefor as by this chapter provided. Failure to make initial registration before operation on the highways of this state is a misdemeanor, and any person convicted thereof must be punished by a fine of no less than three hundred thirty dollars, no part of which may be suspended or deferred.
Failure to renew an expired registration before operation on the highways of this state is a traffic infraction.
So I ask you... based on our constituional requirements for a law to be a law, found being in violation of RCW 46.16.010, did I violate any law? Did you see any enacting clause on RCW 46.16.010?
The answer is a resounding NOPE! Did you know that your state's revised code is written by a bunch of lawyers, not elected by the way, that the legislature designates and its up to them to decide how the "code" should appear that most law enforcement and government agencies site from when determining any violation has taken place? They strip off this enacting clause due to is redundancy but what did we the people state explicitly must be there for it to be acknowledged as a law? The legislature understands this. They wouldn't dare try to pass a session law without it. Yet, they foist this fraud upon you and me ever day since we are too ignorant to argue that Revised Statutes are law but only evidence of law.
Now probably there is a session law, written directly from the state legislators, where this enacting clause is still on this particular piece of work but I was not charged with violating a session law, instead a citation from the Revised Code of Washington. So have I broken any law?
I say NOPE! Can you argue this point in court? I'm still in the process of going this with this particular traffic infraction amoung about 4 OTHER matters of subject matter jurisdiction. It all comes back to that main theme... does the court even have subject matter jurisdiction to hear the case. If it doesn't then there is no case... period! It should be immediately dismissed as such by the court that the case is currently before.
There are many others issues involving the right of travel that I'm also working with in this particular case but I wanted to bring up this particular gem since it probably involves 99.999999999999999999999999999% of all "so-called" violations of law that are ever cited.
This is a very powerful tool. Learn how to use it and argue it appropriately though before putting it to use.