Ut res magis valeat quam pereat?

Answer 1

The principle ut res magis valeat quam pereat is an advanced idea in jurisprudence, and to fully understand it you should refer to a legal dictionary.

The basic idea of [better the thing should function than that it should perish] is that if a piece of law seems unclear, one should try to understand it in a way that makes sense of it. The underlying idea of all legal systems is that all laws make sense, and are there for a purpose. If a law seems incomprehensible or silly, one should try to understand it in some way that makes sense of it - so that it can be used [valeat] rather than simply ignored [pereat].