Recodifying the Law: A Metalinguistic Inquiry into the Recodification of Belgian Law Between 2014–2019
Résumé
Abstract Legal scholars attribute a great deal of importance to the linguistic dimension behind recodification. According to them, language contributes greatly to the improvement of both the accessibility and clarity of the law. Nevertheless, little research on the linguistic aspects of (re)codification exists within both linguistics and legal theory. Consequently, it seems worthwhile to study this linguistic dimension more in depth. To this aim, the recent legislative proposals to recodify various economic, civil and criminal codes in Belgium serve as a useful case study to improve our understanding of the linguistic challenges of recodification. In this article we will look at the linguistic comments made by the Belgian Council of State, a state organ which offers technical advice to the legislator, on the relevant proposals and consider (i) the type of linguistic comments made, and (ii), their implementation by the legislator. On the one hand, such an analysis allows us to single out the linguistic problems accompanying the Belgian recodification and, on the other, to elaborate on them with the help of the insights provided by legal theory. In doing so, we hope for our analysis to be a useful point of reference both for research on the Belgian recodification and other legal/linguistic approaches to recodification in general.