Techniques of legal writing: contemporary realities
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35774/app2022.03.029Keywords:
legal writing, writing, legal document, legal techniquesAbstract
Article deals with studying the techniques of legal writing. It has been determined that legal writing – tool, which is used in the process of creating legal documents. Legal writing is understand as any text prepared by a lawyer that has legal content, whether it is a half-page business letter, a hundred-page memorandum or legal opinion, a draft contract or a draft law, a procedural paper intended for submission to a court, or another document. The rules of legal writing were initially produced only in practical activities. Understanding of what legal writing is was formed gradually, as legal reality became more complicated. During the evolution of legal writing rules the qualitative characteristics of techniques, methods, ways of conducting legal work, which are included in the arsenal of legal writing, have been changed. The rules of legal writing in different legal families help answering for the following questions: formation of judicial precedent, use of the law in the Romano-Germanic legal system etc.
To examine the connection between the notions of «technique» and «legal», we appeal to philosophical understanding of «technique». It has been determined that «technique» – is a complex of human actions aimed at dominating nature, the purpose of which – to give to the life of person such an appearance that would allow him/her to remove the burden of need and find the form of environment he/she needs.
It has been summed up that the function of legal writing is manifested in such a form of legal practice as law-making. As the result of improving the techniques of legal writing, the array of positive law loses its spontaneous character and becomes an expression of a certain preconceived structure subordinate to the logic of the internal structure. Juridical text – a written medium of legal information and one of the most important living forms of expressing the law. It has been generalized that the techniques of legal writing – component of legal technologies that is a system of professional legal rules, tools, techniques and methods that are used to ensure the constructiveness of the written construction and perfection of normative-legal acts.
References
Artykutsa, N. V. (2008). Mova prava u ii funktsionalnykh riznovydakh [The language of law in its functional varieties]. Sohodennia ukrainskoho movnoho seredovyshcha – Today’s Ukrainian language environment, 5, 23–32 [in Ukrainian].
Bylia-Sabadash, I. O. (2010). Normotvorcha tekhnika yak instrument zabezpechennia systemnosti zakonodavstva [Normative technique as a tool for ensuring the system of legislation]. Forum prava – Law forum, 1, 24-33 [in Ukrainian].
Dzeiko, Zh. O. (2007). Yurydychni konstruktsii yak zasoby zakonodavchoi tekhniky: poniattia, znachennia ta vymohy do ikh stvorennia [Legal constructions as means of legislative technique: concept, meaning and requirements for their creation]. Ukrainske pravo – Ukrainian law, 1, 17–29 [in Ukrainian].
Dzeiko, Zh.O. (2011). Zakonodavcha tekhnika v Ukraini (teoretyko-istorychne doslidzhennia) [Legislative technique in Ukraine (theoretical and historical research)]: dys. na zdobuttia nauk. stupenia doktora yuryd nauk.: spets. 12.00.01. Kyiv, Kyivskyi nats. un-t im T.Shevchenka [in Ukrainian].
Dutko, A. O. (2013). Yurydychni konstruktsii ta yikh vykorystannia v zakonotvorchii praktytsi Ukrainy [Legal constructions and their use in law-making practice of Ukraine]: monohrafiia. Lviv: Lvivskyi derzhavnyi universytet vnutrishnikh sprav [in Ukrainian].
Kostovska, K. M. (2012. Osoblyvosti yurydychnoi tekhniky pysmovykh aktiv pravozastosuvannia v diialnosti OVS [Peculiarities of the legal technique of written acts of law enforcement in the activities of the OVS]. Naukovyi visnyk Lvivskoho derzhavnohouniversytetu vnutrishnikh sprav [Scientific Bulletin of the Lviv State University of Internal Affairs]. Seriia yurydychna, 4, 25-31 [in Ukrainian].
Mamutov, V. (2008). Povnishe vykorystovuvaty tekhniko-yurydychni zasoby udoskonalennia zakonodavstva [More fully use technical and legal means of improving legislation]. Pravo Ukrainy – Law of Ukraine, 2, 3–8 [in Ukrainian].
Onyshchuk, I. I. (2019). Tekhnika yurydychnoho pysma v normatyvno-pravovykh aktakh [Technique of legal writing in normative legal acts]: monohrafiia. 2-he vyd., ster. Kharkiv: Pravo [in Ukrainian].
Onyshchuk, I. (2013). Tekhnika yurydychnoho pysma: poniatiino-katehorialnyi aparat [Technique of legal writing: conceptual and categorical apparatus]. Visnyk Natsionalnoi akademii pravovykh nauk Ukrainy – Bulletin of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine], 3 (74), 87-94 [in Ukrainian].
Tsarova, I. V. (2017). Yurydychne dokumentoznavstvo [Legal documentation]: navchalnyi posibnyk. Dnipro: Dniprop. derzh. un-t vnutr. sprav [in Ukrainian].
Chulinda, L. I. (1999). Shliakh vdoskonalennia zakonodavstva cherez yurydykolinhvistychni osoblyvosti pobudovy zakonodavchykh tekstiv [The way to improve legislation through juridico-linguistic features of the construction of legislative texts]. Ukrainske pravo – Ukrainian Law, 2, 101–104 [in Ukrainian].
Shutak, I. D. (2015). Yurydychna tekhnika [Legal technique]: kurs lektsii. Ivano-Frankivsk : Laboratoriia akademichnykh doslidzhen pravovoho rehuliuvannia ta yurydychnoi tekhniky. Drohobych: Kolo. [in Ukrainian].
Felsenburg, M. E., Graham, L. P. (2010). Beginning Legal Writers in Their Own Words: Why the First Weeks of Legal Writing Are So Tough and What We Can Do About It. The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute, 16, 223–311 [in English].
