2008 March 17 | eurealist.co.uk

Plain English

I start from the position that one should never ever sign a legal document unless they are quite clear of the meaning of the document and what the effect of putting their signature to a legally enforceable document the will have in the event of a dispute between the parties.

We are constantly told that this is the normal practice - do not sign anything unless you are quite sure of its meaning - if you are unsure obtain legal advice and have the document examined by a legal professional who will be able to protect your interests.

This advice is the same if we are buying a car on HP buying a house, purchasing insurance in fact signing up to anything.

It is also becoming the norm for the government to insist on clarity pre-contract; on insurance for instance;

It is clearly important that insurers are able to obtain sufficient information from

potential policyholders to assess risks properly.

In fact the government is clearly very much on board with the idea of clarity, Harriet Harman she said she wanted;

Parliament to communicate more clearly with the people. We applaud these efforts to make the path to reading and understanding planned legislation more straightforward

The governments commitment to clear information can also be seen in their Home Information Pack literature

The packs aim to increase confidence in the sale process from the start by providing key information up front.

For buyers, the Pack provides essential information about properties they are considering buying - free of charge - and reduces the chance of unwelcome surprises later on in the process.

But not is seems when it comes to the EU constitution! The German leader made a commitment to bring back the rejected EU constitution and set in motion a series of secret bilateral talks with other states in order to construct a method by which the EU could work round the blockage and to prevent any further chances that the people s of the EU member state could put a spanner in the works.

Angela Merkel was congratulated by the Plain English Campaign for writing the EU’s 50th birthday statement in plain language.

But a few months later and the PEC condemned the EU for deliberately making the Lisbon Treaty unreadable; the Plain English Campaign condemns this as an act of deception by the EU.

That there was intended deception has been common knowledge and has been confirmed by several EU leaders, Giuliano Amato said the new European Union treaty is deliberately ‘unreadable’

The PEC again

This is a damning verdict on the new EU Treaty and the intentions of the people who produced it”. “It is another example of language being used to confuse an important issue. Plain language is essential if we are to have true democracy.”

If !

The Government and the EU for that matter are quite capable of using plain English or plain any other language for that matter when it suits their purpose, as it did when they wrote the Constitution, but when the people rejected it, they soon reverted to secret negotiations and obscure language to hide their intentions.

I am absolutely sure that as the next election approaches we will be bombarded with an avalanche of plain English, the politicians know that to get their message across and get us to vote for them they are going to have to speak in plain English, the only reason there can be for the present lack of plain English is because they want to deceive us. And as they want to deceive us they must have something to hide which they desperately do not want us to know.