It’s the same problem as those reading the Scripture literally. You can’t. You are reading a translation, for starters. To come even close, you need a subtle understanding of semite languages, culture and Greek, depending on your denomination. You need some guidance when reading, whether that is the Holy Ghost, your pastor, or a decade or two of yeshiva school.
The problem here is that people need some way to know if doing something will incur a penalty before they actually do it.
One way to do that is to interpret the law strictly according to the text, or in the case of ambiguity to choose the interpretation that benefits the accused rather than the government. Then you could just read the law to know if it prohibits what you want to do, because unless it unambiguously does, then it doesn't. And then if the government doesn't like it once they see someone doing that, it's up to them to change the law.
Another is to give people a way to get clarification ahead of time. This is called advisory opinions and governments generally hate them because as soon as you allow it, the government is going to be absolutely swamped with requests for clarification because everybody wants to pre-clear everything they're going to do rather than take the risk of getting punished for doing something without clearing it. But in order for this to work, getting a clarification has to be cheap, because "pay a million dollars for an advisory opinion to avoid the risk of a million dollar fine" isn't a real solution to the problem of people getting punished when the law is unclear.
So the first one is actually better, the only "problem" with it is that you need the government to be paying attention and promptly rework the law when it isn't having the intended effect, otherwise you'll have people complaining about it because in the meantime there is a dumb law on the books. But if your government is bad at making good laws then you're going to have a bad time no matter what.
> Another is to give people a way to get clarification ahead of time. This is called advisory opinions and governments generally hate them because as soon as you allow it, the government is going to be absolutely swamped with requests for clarification because everybody wants to pre-clear everything they're going to do rather than take the risk of getting punished for doing something without clearing it. But in order for this to work, getting a clarification has to be cheap, because "pay a million dollars for an advisory opinion to avoid the risk of a million dollar fine" isn't a real solution to the problem of people getting punished when the law is unclear.
A partial solution to this problem is: write laws in a way that need a lot less clarification because there is rarely a need for it because the laws are thought out so well.
A very first step could be to to brutally expose every politician who voted for such shittily designed laws.
Not doing that is a civic duty that I expect from every politician who wants to be considered to be more trustworthy than a child molester who has relapsed several times.
Nope, you need something more systemic than that. Every incumbent politician has voted for shitty laws because if you don't vote for the omnibus full of shitty laws when your party is in the majority and they need your vote then you become a pariah and then your constituents vote you out because pariahs can't accomplish any of the other things they want. And fresh faces wouldn't inherently change the incentives there.
You need something like, ban omnibus bills with a single subject matter rule. Replace first-past-the-post with score voting to dissolve the two-party system. Add new checks and balances so that someone with a better structural incentive to reject bad laws is in a position to veto them, like the US Senate used to be before the 17th amendment.
Or in the EU the structural problems will be different and you may need something different, but you still need something or the status quo tomorrow will be what it was yesterday.
