The Merchant of Venice, although fiction, illustrates a fundamental truth of the law: it turns on technicality and precision. To some degree, it must: if the law is intended to be accessible to the people to whom it accords freedoms and restrictions, those people ought to be able to understand it clearly. But no matter how technically precise and careful, the law will always be subject to interpretation. It is often the case that more than one interpretation of the letter of the law is available to us, so that justices disposed to keep bars open or close them down could both find a rationale
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