Legal Language: Improving Since 1550

In 1550, after only three years on the English throne, Edward VI was so exasperated with the law that he said he wished that “the superfluous and tedious statutes were made more plain and short, to the intent that men might better understand them.” 

This would be a better story had his Highness not been 13 years old at the time, but it resonates 470 years later. The law remains an enigma to most of the people affected by it.

Since it’s tax season in Canada, I’ll begin by naming Canada’s Income Tax Act. The Financial Times of Canada has commented on it a couple of times:

1917: “It is highly undesirable that every citizen should have to run to a lawyer or an accountant to find out what the government meant when it passed the Act. So far as it applies to individuals, the income tax should be so simple and so lucid the individual can tell just what he is liable for without going outside his study." 

1992: “Seventy five years later we've got an entire industry of tax accountants and a legion of 9,000 professional 'tax preparers' as testimony to our legislators' shortcomings.” 

Attempts to update Canada’s Income Tax Act have begun, although not been completed. But tax forms are now better-designed, the guides are better-written and the internet has made much of this information more accessible.

Legislation is not the only way that legal language touches people’s lives, and especially consumers’ lives.

We recently bought reusable lids for leftovers. The package included a notice that “BY PURCHASING A (COMPANY NAME) PRODUCT (WE) AGREE THAT TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, ANY DISPUTE WITH (THE COMPANY) CONCERNING THE PRODUCT SHALL BE RESOLVED BY BINDING INDIVIDUAL ARBITRATION.” We have “thirty (30) days” to opt out of arbitration. And, the notice said, if “any provision or part of this Agreement is found to be invalid or unenforceable, only that provision or part so found, and not this entire Agreement, will be inoperative.”

A pretty dramatic warning for reusable food covers. I wouldn’t have thought I had an agreement with a company for a product that cost less than $10.

Whatever the reason for the warning, the words some lawyers have used for the last 500 years have not prevented law suits and they have created a great deal of confusion.

But just as the law has come a long way since Edward VI’s day, legal writing is changing too.

Some lawyers (and even some judges) are beginning to embrace plain language in their legal writing: it saves time and reduces misunderstandings.

Plain legal language keeps people and businesses moving forward smoothly and efficiently, and increases access to justice.

Thanks to plain language pioneer Martin Cutts for the story about Edward Vi in his Oxford Guide to Plain English.