Comprehensibility in Law

This article examines language as a tool of law and highlights the importance of comprehensible legal provisions for democracy, legal certainty, and individual autonomy. The question of how to make legal provisions as comprehensible as possible for citizens has recurred throughout history and remains current today, with many countries adopting legal reforms and initiatives to promote plain language in legal texts. The article also reviews findings from linguistics and cognitive psychology on comprehension and comprehensibility, concluding that these concepts are inherently subjective and depend heavily on the background, motivation, and cognitive abilities of the recipient. However, closer analysis shows that the dual function of the language of legal provisions gives these concepts a different character in the legal context. Given the heterogeneity of legal audiences, the subjective (relative) nature of comprehensibility and comprehension, and the technical nature of legal provisions, simplification is often impossible without risking distortion of the meaning of the norm. The author advocates a balanced approach: improving surface features of texts where possible, integrating legal/administrative content into education, training public officials to communicate with laypeople, and using digital tools and artificial intelligence to improve access and comprehension.

Key words: comprehensibility, comprehension, legal language, specialized communication, language for special purposes.