Interpretation of statutes/Gesetzesauslegung
am 18.10.2006 von Transblawg
On an ITI list, a member was looking for this quotation on plain legal English:
One of the most colourful criticisms of legal language remains however that of Harman L.J. in Davy v. Leeds Corporation.14
“To reach a conclusion on this matter involved the court in wading through a monstrous legislative morass, staggering from stone to stone and ignoring the marsh gas exhaling from the forest of schedules lining the way on each side. I regarded it at one time, I must confess, as a slough of despond through which the court would never drag its feet, but I have, by leaping from tussock to tussock as best I might, eventually, pale and exhausted, reached the other side.” (at page 394)
The same search turned up an Irish Consultation Paper on statutory drafting and interpretation: plain language and the law.
This is interesting in that …
Abbreviations of German statutes/Gesetzesabkürzungen
Transblawg / Citing German legislation: BGB DE: (all references) BGB EN: (first reference) Civil Code [or German Civil Code] (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch - BGB) (second reference): either BGB or Civil Code (Some books on comparative law use the abbreviation CC f…
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Transblawg / Here’s a bizarre item on Quizilla. I’m afraid I can’t remember where I found it. I particularly liked the pepperoni pizza question: You are the Rule of Lenity! You interpret ambiguities in penal statutes in favor of the accused. …
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Transblawg / The British government wants to reform the coroner system and a bill is to be published next Monday ( June 12). From what the Times Online says, it’s going to be accompanied by a translation into plain English. The Coroner Reform Draft Bill, p…
Lawyers avoiding the passive/Vermeidung des Passivs
Transblawg / Arnold Zwicky at Language Log has an entry on The passive in law. This relates to the frequent call by Plain English advocates: ‘Avoid the passive’. Language Log has pilloried this before, and rightly so. Not every use of the passive in…
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Transblawg / The Language and Law Conference will be held from May 17 to 19, 2006 in Duesseldorf, Germany. It is an interdisciplinary joint-venture of the University of Duesseldorf and the University of California, Los Angeles. The full programme should be onlin…
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Transblawg / I wrote on June 7 that the Coroner Reform Draft Bill was to be published in parallel versions, one of which was to be in plain English. That bill was published on June 12, and here is a page linking to it and other materials. It has now been pointe…
English-Chinese legal translation/Rechtsübersetzung Chinesisch-Englisch
Transblawg / Slaw - which describes itself as a co-operative weblog about Canadian legal research and IT, etc. - kindly gave me a mention, and in connection with that I found a reference to a book on legal translation that has not yet appeared in North America bu…
Books on legal English - general/ Bücher über die englische Rechtssprache - allgemein
Transblawg / I wrote a whole screen on how you should choose a book as carefully as you choose your toothpaste, but I suspect people want concrete advice. That follows in a later entry. Here's the general waffle: Books to learn legal English /Bücher zu…
Software for less plain English
Transblawg / The program WhiteSmoke will ‘enrich’ your English. The demo on the site shows how you can start with a simple sentence like ‘I admire your work’ and finish with a strangely un-English one like ‘I greatly appreciate your…
