How does one measure the detailed understanding of the laws by the legislators who are passing it?

Question

It is clear that laws are drafted with an immense level of attention to minute legalistic detail with care often put into the choices of every word. Indeed, needless to say, courts and litigation parties often agonise on the choices of single words, and the questions of whether or not those choices can be seen as intentional, and even when they're found that they can't be seen as intentional, there is an apparent imperative to treat them as though they are, anyway.

From TV legislature-floor debates, it seems that generally the provisions are debated at the level of "should we include or reject this amendment proposed by X legislator?" And not, "should we change this "and" to an "or" or add an "either" in this clause of this section?"

Which is quite understandable, because, meanwhile, legislators are extremely busy people and largely politicians rather than lawyers.

So to what extent do legislators actually familiarise themselves with the finer details of laws that they debate and pass? In systems with bicameral legislatures, does this answer change significantly between the upper and lower houses?

Answer 1

united-kingdom

As noted in comments, the detailed line-by-line or word-by-word analysis isn't done on the floor of the legislature, but in committee. It is worth recalling the process for the passage of a bill in Parliament

After "first reading" (a formal introduction of the bill with no debate) There is the second reading. MPs discuss the general intent of the bill. There is then a vote. No detailed analysis is done at this stage. However, government bills will have been drafted by civil servants, whose job it is to know how to write legislation. The civil servants work under the direction of the Ministers. The civil servant is there to enable the Minister to create a law that will work as they intend, and not have loopholes or exploitable ambiguities.

Then there is the Committee, in which a small group of MPs will go through the bill in detail. They can take advice from lawyers, and can hear evidence from experts and others with an interest in the bill. In this stage the wording of each clause is discussed, tweaked and voted on.

Then there is Report, when MPs on the floor of the house can introduce and vote on individual amendments. And finally there is Third Reading, which asks the house to approve the final form of the bill.

After all this, the Bill then moves to the Lords, in which the whole procedure is repeated, with the Lords also forming a committee to scrutinize the bill line by line. It is only after the two houses have a wording that they can agree does the bill get sent to the Monarch for Royal Assent (a formal step in modern times)

So you can expect the Ministers who are directing their civil servants to draft legislation understand the minutia of the bill, as do those MPs on the Committee for the bill. Others are more concerned with the intent, theme and scope of the bill, rather then the exact wording, and will normally vote in accordance with the whips' instructions.