Legal Terminology in the Context of Foreign Law-making Experience

Abstract

The paper deals with the role and significance of legal terminology as a means of legal writing techniques. The authors stress that a uniform administration of legal norms is achieved by a uniform use of legal terminology and affects the stability of the whole legal system. In opposition to that, the variety of terminology, as well as new characteristics added to existing terms, complicates the perception of legal norms, which may eventually result in a deformation of the latter at the application stage. To exemplify that, the authors analyzed the content of the “consumer” term specified in the Law of the Russian Federation No. 2300-1 of 7 February 1992, “On Consumer Rights Protection”, and other special laws governing consumer relations. The lawmaker’s approach to introducing new terms having a similar meaning to that of the “consumer” was shown to be groundless. Based on Australia’s Fair Work Act 2009, methods of working with the terminology used by an Australian lawmaker were studied. Norms of the above Act were analyzed, enabling the authors to discover an approach to the interpretation of the terms and to their use in framing legal norms that differs from the Russian one. The authors conclude that the legal writing techniques used by an Australian lawmaker appear to be rather successful, allowing to achieve the goals, excluding risks of dual interpretation, and keeping the simplicity of statutory concepts.