The signal is clear and comparatively stronger.
Sofia Ranchordás 14, a full professor of public law and a Rosalind Franklin fellow at the Faculty of Law of the University of Groningen and she is also an affiliated fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, 2-11-2014; Statute Law Review, "Sunset Clauses and Experimental Regulations: Blessing or Curse for Legal Certainty?," https://academic.oup.com/slr/article/36/1/28/1614369 //AS
Sunset clauses can also contribute to ‘greater certainty’ than a permanent law does because, as times goes by, the effectiveness of a rule may diminish.78 The evolution of social circumstances are susceptible of creating new possibilities for legal disputes that are not comprehended by the scope of lasting rules, or potential litigants may try to readjust their conduct in order to avoid the application of this specific rule.79 This growing reduction of the effectiveness of rules may constitute a ground for justifying the need for legal change. In this light, D’ Amato argues that a (judicial) sunsetting of statutes comparable to the amendment of precedents performed by courts, would increase legal certainty and ensure that legislation reflects the changed reality.80
In addition, sunset clauses, if correctly designed and implemented, are susceptible of stimulating long-term investment.81 To wit, in cases involving taxes as the example on tax production credits, a sunset may still accelerate investment because tax payers may fear losing tax benefits. Moreover, ‘a calculable legal system’ in the sense desired by entrepreneurs, does not necessarily mean that private actors may expect that legal systems are solely inhabited by lasting, clear and unambiguous bright-line rules.82 There is a discrepancy between the certainty pursued by lawyers, and the one pursued by economic parties. The latter are mainly interested in the certainty regarding their contractual rights and duties: the consequences of their actions.83 Lawyers, on the contrary, identify legal certainty with the predictability of applying legal rules to specific cases. This is why it has been purported that although lawyers prefer clear, precise and determinate legal rules, entrepreneurs might be often satisfied by vague legal standards as long as they can allow them to calculate the consequences of their actions.84
In conclusion, sunset clauses are susceptible of constituting a ‘blessing’ for legal certainty since: first, a palpable ‘temporary legal certainty’ may be preferable to the illusion of an everlasting one. Secondly, sunset clauses can ensure that legislation continues to reflect reality as it is and as citizens see it, and not as it should be or it was at the time of the original legislative drafting