Language often shapes a country’s future. The development of human beings is directly proportional to the growth of language. Language itself shapes people’s consciences. The realisation of oneself starts with the fundamental development of language. The earliest moral education for children begins with parents or grandparents telling stories in the vernacular. Language is a form of expression. The way we choose to express ourselves is very personal. No two people can write the same words in the exact same arrangements. The tone and style may differ, while the idea remains the same. That’s the beauty of expression, with more writers, more ideas emerge and evolve.
If we look at the development of rights, duties, liabilities, privileges, etc. We see an important role of legal language in doing it. With the development of legal language, the legal system became more precise in legal drafting and in ensuring accountability in subtler ways.
As the famous saying goes, Rome was not built in one day. The language was also not built in one day; it took multiple centuries. Although Rome was not built in a day, it is said to have laid the foundation for legal language. In our article, we will discuss how legal language, in particular, affected the development of the community.
What is jargon to a layman is considered a basic tool in a lawyer’s hands. Legal Maxim as we see today, developed in Ancient Rome, the words such as bona fide (in good faith), res ipsa loquitur (the thing speaks for itself), ubi jus ibi remedium (where there is right, there is remedy) and many more are essential learnings for a lawyer codified by order of Emperor Justinian I during 529-534 AD. These maxims serve as basic principles to date, and many courts cite them in their judgments with pride. Nevertheless, it is complex and not understandable to the general public.
One question that arises is why courts use language that people to whom it applies cannot understand properly, or why the right framers choose language in drafting that the right holder cannot realise their rights to the maximum capacity because of a complexity of interpretation.
Legal language is often considered the most complex to understand by the common masses. A layman may interpret legal language with limited understanding. Legal Language is hard to draft for framers, as they have to be careful about which words to choose and which to omit, while at the same time ensuring no one is excluded because of language. It becomes one of the interesting aspects for law students to develop their drafting skills. It is fun to be part of a study that is both difficult and interesting.
At the outset, we will argue for or against a simple legal text. The simple legal text may have a positive effect on common people. However, it does not address the common problems of clarity and the application of the law. Legal Language is not just vocabulary or empty words; it carries within itself a spirit. A simple change of punctuation can change the legal meaning of a sentence. Legal language has a deterministic element that plain language often fails to capture. Plain language may have contextual meaning, but the law cannot afford to leave it to apply on the basis of context without wanting it to be like that.
Our society is complex; it has a hierarchy of social issues. A simple language can further intensify the social complexity, as ambiguity in language leads to absurdity in action. A lawyer’s role is to help people provide this super-specialised service of understanding complex legal language. It is a good idea to understand your rights yourself. Rather, it is, but many procedural requirements require proper checks and balances, and simple legal language can mask many ambiguities, which a deterministic factor of legal language cannot.
The legal field is often the most reader-centric, and the profession is often described as a field of practice because of these aspects. The effect of legal language is that it makes a lawyer from a layman.
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This article is authored by Jeet Sinha.
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