Do you need an outdated non-specific legal language, username?


    In the previous article, one very good question came out in the comments, from which it’s not a sin to make a full-fledged article, the speech about the usefulness or necessity of the legal language as such. I am not too lazy to reproduce this question in full:
    Can you talk a little about legal language? Can you suggest an explanatory legal dictionary that contains a generally accepted set of definitions? Why does the introduction of special terms not lead (for a layman) to a reduction in documents? Is it possible to write documents without loss of meaning without the use of special terms, according to Ozhegov, and how will the length of the texts and accessibility for the layman change?

    I have to read, and in places to memorize, at least: a criminal code with comments, a military charter, a labor code, a tax code, consumer rights laws, family and education laws, and a number of social services laws (for example, to have the right not to go to radiology on foot to the fourth floor with a broken leg and a sore heart). This is a huge and constantly changing array of information, and not always obvious and logical.


    Indeed, from school we remember that ignorance of the laws does not absolve us from liability for their violation, therefore it would be better to know the law in order to avoid it, and it is usually written in a complex, boring language, it is difficult to read it without a skill.

    I must say right away: the question of language is my favorite question about everything. About 30-40% of what I am hired for arises because people with great difficulty formulate what is in their head, either orally or in writing. The next level of this problem is the majority’s habit of speaking vaguely or involving words that are borderline in meaning if they look beautiful.

    The issue of accessibility to the legal language worries both ordinary people and the lawyers themselves. We all consumed laws, just a part of us received a set of special knowledge for this. Laws are written for everyone, and any law is not just a set of terms, but rules that need to be applied in specific life situations. And the state, as long as it is interested in enforcing the law, should think about the clarity and comprehensibility of legal texts.

    But the fact is that their text does not reach the main “consumers of laws” in the original source. From an early age, we all learn the right through the stories of parents, acquaintances, television programs and comments in the media. It is rare that anyone reads the Criminal Code or the Civil Code in the latest edition, but the vast majority of citizens know the basics of law. We know that murder or theft is a crime, and are punishable by imprisonment, although we have not read Art. 105 or 158 of the Criminal Code. Or we know that you need to pay for transportation in a public automobile boom, although you haven’t seen the rules of the Civil Code and the Charter of Road Transport on a contract of carriage in your eyes. Examples of legal norms, living life to the fullest, mass: receipt of money; take a receipt to prove later that you paid; give a power of attorney if you do not want to go to court yourself, etc.

    All this overlaps one another and gives us this very question: should I read the laws. And here one simple turn comes out: not what it should, but the trick is that it makes you think about the law, and not just listen to the popular text and wave it off, they understand.


    This is generally a big misfortune of our time - the categorical prevalence of form over content. Easy to read - we will consume. We must think - we will resent why we need this.

    So why is it so complicated in legal documents? Why do lawyers use terms that are difficult for a layman to understand?

    The main reasons:
    In any science there is a special language with which it describes the phenomena it studies. Jurisprudence is no exception.

    The legal language has many functions. One of them is to achieve a unity of terminology. In order for everyone to understand what he should and what should not do, the language of the legal document must be accurate and clear. Accuracy cannot be achieved without the use of concepts - terms - that have strictly defined content. Therefore, the laws use the terms worked out before that by legal science, and in the agreements, court decisions and all other documents in which the law lives, is implemented, these very concepts are used from the laws.

    The use of stamps, clericalism. Attempts to change or reduce such cliches may not simplify, but rather complicate the perception of the document at all stages of its application and thereby tighten the workflow as a whole. Lawyers and other people accustomed to documents see familiar excerpts from laws (turnovers, or whole sentences) in a text and read information from a document twice as fast as if the author of the document approached it more creatively. "In accordance with the current legislation of the Russian Federation" or "The opinion of the authors of this document, which you are reading right now, is based on the study of the latest version of the laws of the Russian Federation." Yes, it sounds much more interesting, but much more verbose. In addition, here is an example of legal inaccuracy: a “fresh edition” may be fresh, for example, but not effective when the law has not yet entered into force.

    And the exact terms need to be understood. They may be unusually readable, but in the legal world EVERYONE has a rather large amount of concentrated content. Useful thing


    The construction of the document is also justified by logic and standards. For example, any written contract usually contains sections that are familiar to everyone: the introductory part (who concluded the contract), the subject of the contract (about which), the rights and obligations of the parties, responsibility, the grounds for the change and termination, and other conditions. This is a familiar structure, and it is much more common for any business manager or accountant to see the contract in this form than to look for the names of the signatories on the second page below, and the subject of the agreement can be unexpectedly seen on the last page of the text.
    In addition, this reduces the risk of a different understanding of the same text. Plus it sometimes shortens the text. For example, if a judge in a decision writes “to recover 1000 rubles in favor of the plaintiff” or “to recover 1000 rubles in favor of a citizen who has turned to a court to resolve a dispute about something”. In the decision, the judge uses the term “plaintiff”, the content of which is specified in the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation ”, and there is no need to disclose it. Therefore, it cannot be said that “the introduction of special terms does not lead to a reduction in documents”. Even as leads.

    To be honest, I would exacerbate. The use of precise concepts is rapidly out of fashion. Moreover, according to social networks, we can observe how completely idiotic information, drawn up in an attractive shell for the average man, regularly causes great approval and an avalanche-like distribution among the public. Jurisprudence today remains an amusing island of concrete discussion on complex topics, even though efforts are required to understand its language. And it sincerely seems to me that these efforts have their own value.

    It's like in that joke as the photographer decided to become a plastic surgeon and bought the most expensive scalpel. If you want to do something - study the laws about what you climb into. Yes, it can be more difficult than buying a tool that, it might seem, will do everything on its own, but it will give you very useful knowledge and, which is not bad at all, will make you think about what you plan to do, and clearly and with different sides.


    Why think and delve into? Then, that any ambiguity will negatively affect the application of the document and lead to a violation or uncertainty in the rights of a citizen or organization. After all, if it is not clear what exactly you should do, and what exactly you should do, how to do it and how to make another respect your rights? Jurisprudence should strive for clarity: in the expression "Execute cannot be pardoned," in clearly defined cases, the comma should be put in one place in one place, without exception, law enforcement.

    There is a more general task for the legal language: to achieve high certainty of the text with the maximum ease of expression. Compare: The validity of the power of attorney is one year. The date of the power of attorney dated June 1, 2016 "and the Power of attorney is valid through June 1, 2017 inclusive." In the first version, both the text is large, and the person still does not understand what day of 2017 his powers will end?

    Therefore, legal texts can and should be written in as simple a language as possible, bringing together common and special legal concepts, but it is impossible to do without special terms, just as it cannot be done in any branch of human knowledge. Yes, explaining to the worker the mechanism of the machine’s operation, the master can say: “Here’s a hit on that squiggle, turn the joke and let that bandura fly out there”, but write an instruction in a similar language, designed for “non-eyewitnesses” of what is happening, without using the names of mechanisms and processes, so much so that all others understand how it works, he is unlikely to succeed.

    Non-specialists interested in law can be advised to read special adapted collections devoted to different areas of life: “everything for motorists”, “real estate transactions”, to follow aspen legislation news on TV and on the websites of legal reference systems. And for the preparation of competent legal documents use templates compiled by specialists.

    (c) Alina Tukhvatullina, Kirill Gotovtsev

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