Education, language and law

Abstract

The democratic state should encourage its citizens to be able to manage their public and private interests and to participate in the institutions. However, the legal language, rooted in stereotypes and archaic uses often prevents citizens’ access to knowledge and management of their rights and duties. In this paper, we will propose solutions to the gap between justice and citizens caused by the language. To do this, we will analyze the role of two key players of the communicative act: on the one hand, the sender, i.e., the jurists who produce different types of legal texts, and on the other hand, the receiver, i.e., the citizen. The authorities have to bring closer the positions of the two, training the first ones in language and writing techniques that contribute to the accuracy, brevity, clarity and readability of their texts and educating the latter, especially in the period of compulsory education for developing their competence in reading comprehension of legal texts. Thus, there will be a stronger cohesion between citizens and state institutions and we will go further in the concept of democracy.