EVENT: IALS – Why is legal language so complicated? Legislative drafters and linguists compare notes

Posted June 8th, 2016 in Forthcoming events by sally

‘The last decades have witnessed important innovations in legislative drafting but have we succeeded in producing perfect laws? Just because a bill has passed into law does not mean that its goals have been achieved. Indeed, the quality of legislation may not only be affected by the intrinsic drafting difficulties; the implementation of legislation may be significantly influenced by a range of ‘filtering agents’ at whom legislation is directed and who may constrain, adapt and modify the intentions that form the basis of the legislation approved in the first place. Looking at more ‘scientific’ disciplines, such as linguistics, may be of some help for the legislative drafter who wants to know how a piece of legislation has performed and the extent to which its goals will be achieved.’

Date: 29th June 2016, 2.00-5.30pm

Location: Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, 17 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DR

Charge: Free, registration required

More information can be found here.