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VICTORIA -- When someone gives you an orange, he'll say, "have an orange." When the same transaction is done by a lawyer, it may sound something like this:
"I hereby give and convey to you, all and singular, my estate and interest, right, title, claim and advantages of and in said orange, together with all its rind, juice, pulp and pips and all rights and advantages therein with full power to bite, suck and otherwise to eat the same or give the same away with or without the rind, skin, juice, pulp and pips, anything hereinbefore or hereinafter or in any other means of whatever nature or kind whatsoever to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding."
The item above appeared some 30 years ago in the Montreal Star and was, at that time, reprinted in the Canadian Bar Review. It reappeared a few weeks ago in a report to Attorney General Bud Smith by the Justice Reform Committee.
A strong plea for plain and simple language in our legal system is one of the report's major recommendations. British Columbians, the report says, are entitled to a justice system they can understand.
The reports stresses that people involved in litigation need to understand the documents they must sign or swear. They should be able to understand the words that are spoken to them in court by lawyers and judges. The laws that govern people's lives, it says, must be intelligible to them.
"The justice system of this province must commit itself to speaking in plain language," the report states in a language that couldn't be more plain.
The call for plain language instead of convoluted legal lingo was a recurring theme in the sub,missions the committee received during a number of public hearings.
Workers in a legal aid office, for instance, told the committee that they have to spend a great deal of time trying to explain the meaning of the words spoken by judges and lawyers, and contained in legal documents. Someone who has been a defence witness twice told the committee that lawyers "talk their fancy legal lingo that very few people understand."
The committee offered a few good examples of the inanity of legalese. Archaic phrases such as "Know All Men by These Presents" or "Now This Indenture Witnesseth," should be scrapped, according to the report. The same, it says, goes for piling synonyms on top of synonyms, as in acknowledge and confess, give, devise and bequeath, cease and desist, fit and proper, goods and chattels.
And then there are the archaic Latin terms such as inter alia, de novo, ab initio, ejusdem generis or in re. For each one of these, the report says, there is a perfectly acceptable English equivalent.
Plain language, the report says, is not "simple-minded" or "overªsimplified." Plain language gets the message through immediately and easily, it says.
A lot of countries are far ahead of Canada in replacing legalese with plain language. In Britain, Lord Denning is leading a grass-roots campaign, the official aim of which is the reform of government documents.
For the bottom-liners, let it be said that the switch to plain language can achieve savings. The English Department of Health and Social Security save an estimated 13 million pounds a year as a result of using new forms that are more easily understood. The cost of redesigning the forms was 35,000 pounds.
In the United States, the push for plain legal language was spearheaded by banks and insurance companies. Several states have passed Plain English laws that make consumer easily understandable consumer contracts a legal requirement.
When critics told the Law Reform Commission of Victoria, Australia, that complex statutes cannot be written in plain language, the commission produced a readable version of the Companies (Acquisition of Shares) Code, believed to be Victoria's most complex statute.
To get the ball rolling, the Justice Reform Committee urges the attorney general to appoint a Plain Language Committee. That committee is to develop a strategy for implementation of plain language in the justice system.
The committee suggests that a good place to start introducing plain language into the justice system would be documents used by seniors. The Small Claims Court, it says, would be another natural, because people using that court are usually not represented by a lawyer.
The committee says the impact of plain language in our legal system would be dramatic.
"Justice will be more relevant, efficient, accessible and less costly when this province makes a commitment to the use of plain language in the courts and all areas of the legal system," the report says.
