Statutory law is no exception, it is not only common law which is inconsistent.
Laws are not logical constructs, they are political constructs, why expect logic from them.
Laws are passed or repealed because it is popular or politically advantageous to do so, not necessarily because it is moral or common sense.
On top of that politicians pass stupid legislation without understanding what they are doing all the time, the infamous Indiana pi bill is a simple example, it almost became law and was stopped by sheer luck, a mathematics professor attending that day on a unrelated matter.
Laws are conflicting, confusing, ambiguous and misleading most of the time, that is expected, the legislating them is a messy process. The third arm of any government judiciary sole purpose is to handle this mess.
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P.S. I cannot say whether continental legal systems are more robust, but perhaps healthier democracy results in better laws.
All democracies are flawed, U.S. democracy is not particularly healthy, it is not say an proportional multi-party representative system with fair distribution of power amongst all citizens.
From the founding it has been a series of compromises, the history is littered with representation fights such as for suffrage, Jim crow and voting rights, slavery, electoral college, number of states or the filibuster or anti Chinese laws and so on and on.
Don't get me wrong last 250 years have been incredible progress and great leaders put their lives down to make it better, hopefully it will be even better in the future, the struggles do show in the laws it is able to pass, repeal or update.
Laws are not logical constructs, they are political constructs, why expect logic from them.
Laws are passed or repealed because it is popular or politically advantageous to do so, not necessarily because it is moral or common sense.
On top of that politicians pass stupid legislation without understanding what they are doing all the time, the infamous Indiana pi bill is a simple example, it almost became law and was stopped by sheer luck, a mathematics professor attending that day on a unrelated matter.
Laws are conflicting, confusing, ambiguous and misleading most of the time, that is expected, the legislating them is a messy process. The third arm of any government judiciary sole purpose is to handle this mess.
---
P.S. I cannot say whether continental legal systems are more robust, but perhaps healthier democracy results in better laws.
All democracies are flawed, U.S. democracy is not particularly healthy, it is not say an proportional multi-party representative system with fair distribution of power amongst all citizens.
From the founding it has been a series of compromises, the history is littered with representation fights such as for suffrage, Jim crow and voting rights, slavery, electoral college, number of states or the filibuster or anti Chinese laws and so on and on.
Don't get me wrong last 250 years have been incredible progress and great leaders put their lives down to make it better, hopefully it will be even better in the future, the struggles do show in the laws it is able to pass, repeal or update.