45 Accessibility and the common law 88 I  have  not  said  anything  in  this  paper,  already  becoming  unacceptably  long, regarding accessibility of the common law, except to the extent that both common law and statute intersect. One advantage the judge has over the drafter of a statute is  that  the  judge  has  a  freer  hand.  He  or  she  has  a  wider  range  of  options  for communicating meaning. The judge can express a proposition in different ways, define issues, engage in discussion and analysis, employ more context, and generally make a judgment more interesting reading. A long judgment often results. 89 The notion that judges declare the law has long since been discredited. A judgment of a court is, however, an authoritative statement of the law, whether the judgment involves the construction of a statute, contract, lease, will, or other document, or determines the liability of one party to another, or decides on the lawfulness or otherwise of executive action. Frequently, a court has to decide complex factual issues  before  determining  the  relevant  law  and  applying  it.  Judgments  involve careful evaluation of competing arguments on fact and law. A judgment is likely to contain a mix of factual narrative, analysis of the arguments put forward by counsel, an exposition of the law, and a decision on the issues before the court. 90 However, a reader cannot usually go to a judgment and quickly find out what the law is on the  matter with which the judgment deals. He or she will have to read it or possibly read several judgments on the same matter. Even a dissenting judgment may agree on the law as it is stated in the other judgments, but not on its application to the particular facts. This presents considerable challenges to people who have not been trained, as lawyers have, in how to read the judgments of the courts. 91 The drafter of a statute or a regulation is confined to a single statement of a legal proposition. Each provision has to be “tig ht”. There is little room for explaining scope or context. There is the additional constraint that the longer a statute is, the