2 ms·

I think their study is flawed as it ignores what I think is the biggest reason: and that's the courts, or specifically judges. There's been centuries of legal

I think their study is flawed as it ignores what I think is the biggest reason: and that's the courts, or specifically judges. There's been centuries of legal disputes, in both civil and criminal cases, and judges have over time through their rulings have influenced what is the acceptable wording to enforce whatever it is legislators intended for a particular law. When judges render a verdict, it becomes case law, and although that itself is regarded as part of the law, where there's ambiguity, over time, legislators have been prone to abrogate laws with more exact wording. This is reflected in the tendency for judges to fall in groups that favour one way of interpretation over another, like Intentionalism, Purposivism, Textualism etc. The fact that statutory construction is something that is almost exclusively driven by judges themselves seems also pretty important when studying the language of the law and it's kind of absurd they ignore it in this study.

DoingIsLearning 2y ago
> There's been centuries of legal disputes, in both civil and criminal cases, and judges have over time through their rulings have influenced what is the acceptable wording ... When judges render a verdict, it becomes case law, and although that itself is regarded as part of the law, where there's ambiguity, over time, legislators have been prone to abrogate laws with more exact wording. Anglosphere applies Common Law but that is not the case across the rest of the world. It is very much a 'style' expectation irrespective of an attempt to precision (which it often lacks). I would even argue that Common law countries follow simpler legal language because of an inherent pragmatism when compared with Civil Law. If we look at the legal output from countries that directly or indirectly are influenced by old 'cathedra' university heritages (old French, Italian legacy or influence) it is far more convoluted IMO.

DoingIsLearning 2y ago

> There's been centuries of legal disputes, in both civil and criminal cases, and judges have over time through their rulings have influenced what is the acceptable wording ... When judges render a verdict, it becomes case law, and although that itself is regarded as part of the law, where there's ambiguity, over time, legislators have been prone to abrogate laws with more exact wording. Anglosphere applies Common Law but that is not the case across the rest of the world. It is very much a 'style' expectation irrespective of an attempt to precision (which it often lacks). I would even argue that Common law countries follow simpler legal language because of an inherent pragmatism when compared with Civil Law. If we look at the legal output from countries that directly or indirectly are influenced by old 'cathedra' university heritages (old French, Italian legacy or influence) it is far more convoluted IMO.