Allameh Tabataba’i University Strategic Recommendations for  Administrative Bodies

Allameh Tabataba’i University Strategic Recommendations for Administrative Bodies

Critique of the Language of Law in Iran's Legislative System

Author
Department of Public and International Law, Allameh Tabataba'i University
Abstract
The language of law is the most crucial tool for conveying the legislator's intent to audiences, and any disruption in this process can cause policy and legislative objectives to fail. The main challenges of legal language include ambiguity, complexity, equivocation, excessive brevity or verbosity, redundancy, generality, and the use of technical terms incomprehensible to the general public—factors that cause audience confusion, reduce implementation efficiency, and increase interpretive disputes. Furthermore, institutional weaknesses in the drafting process of legislative texts are problematic, including the amateur status of draft writers in the government and parliament, the lack of professional legislative drafting training, the absence of a coherent framework for text development, and the inclusion of multiple heterogeneous demands in a single text, leading to dispersion and structural incoherence. From a reform perspective, professionalizing legislative drafting and recognizing the "right to plain language" as a citizen's right is essential, enabling individuals to understand the meaning of the law without relying entirely on legal experts. It is also recommended that, alongside the main text of laws, simplified and explanatory versions be published through official channels, multi-layered writing based on audience diversity be employed, institutional focus be established at the level of government commissions and the parliamentary deputy for laws to develop texts, and linguists familiar with legal linguistics be utilized for continuous analysis and pathology of legislative texts.
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