doi.org/10.35321/term29-07

On the Requirements for Legal Act Terms and Their Definitions

ALVYDAS UMBRASAS

Institute of the Lithuanian Language

ORCID id: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5184-0056

ANNOTATION

The terminology management of legal acts in Lithuania has already become established practice, but the requirements imposed on legal act terms and their definitions may be a subject of debate. Since the drafting of legal acts is governed by legal acts themselves, it is worth examining what terminological requirements they impose. This article is devoted to that question. Better regulation of the requirements for legal act terms and their definitions can contribute to improving the quality of lawmaking.

KEYWORDS: terms of legal acts, linguistic requirements, logical requirements, terminology management, definition.

ABSTRACT

The management of the terms of legal acts has already acquired a tradition in Lithuania, but the requirements for these terms and their definitions may be the subject of a debate. Since the drafting of legal acts is regulated by the legal acts themselves, it is worth clarifying the terminological requirements that are imposed on them. That is the focus of this article. Better regulation of the requirements for terms and definitions in legal acts can contribute to improving the quality of legislation.

KEYWORDS: terms of legal acts, linguistic requirements, logical requirements, terminology ordering, definition.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

Legislation is one of the most important domains of language use in a state, and its language affects the language used in other domains. Legislation is also important from a terminological perspective, since terms are not only used in it but also defined there. The terminological aspects of legislation are the subject of this article. Using a descriptive-analytical method, the article

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examines the requirements imposed on terms in legislation, assessing them not only from a terminological perspective but also in terms of legal regulation. The aim is to determine what requirements are imposed on terms in legislation and their definitions by sources governing the drafting of legislation, assess whether those requirements are sufficient, and, drawing on practice, offer certain insights and recommendations. The article focuses primarily on the terminological aspects of legislation adopted in Lithuania, that is, national legislation, but where necessary it also considers the context of European Union legislation translated into Lithuanian, since its terminological character is similar and, moreover, it affects national legislation.

Given the nature of the questions under investigation and the state of the phenomena discussed, the article is divided into two parts, in which the data are analyzed differently: the first part provides a general description of the requirements imposed on terms in legislation, without examining specific examples, while the second part, by contrast, devotes more attention to examples of definitions of terms in legislation in order to show their distinctive features. As will become apparent, establishing requirements for these definitions remains a task for the future.

In addition to legal sources, the article draws mainly on the research of Kazimieras Gaivenis, who devoted the most attention in Lithuanian terminology to requirements for terms and their definitions, as well as to general matters of terminology (see Gaivenis 2002: 14–49). Stasys Keinys (1980: 27–58) had earlier written about requirements relevant to this study. Today, requirements for terms are more often discussed in a didactic context (e.g., Akelaitis et al. 2009: 36–44).

ON REQUIREMENTS FOR TERMS IN LEGISLATION

The status of Lithuanian as the state language is enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania and in the Law on the State Language of the Republic of Lithuania. The latter specifies precisely the use of language in lawmaking: “The laws and other legal acts of the Republic of Lithuania shall be adopted and published in the state language” (VKI 1995: 3¹). Legislation governing the drafting of legal acts also establishes qualitative language criteria. As early as 1995, the Law on the Procedure for the Drafting of Laws and Other Normative Legal Acts of the Republic of Lithuania was adopted, stipulating that “[L]egal acts

1 Here and below, references to legal acts and recommendation publications indicate article or section numbers, not page numbers.

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be written in accordance with the norms of standard Lithuanian and the requirements of legal terminology” (ĮTNARTĮ 1995: 12). This statement was incorporated into the Recommendations for Drafting Laws and Other Legal Acts (ĮTARR 1998: 1.8). The wording changed somewhat later², but the provision that legal acts must comply with the norms of standard language and the requirements of legal terminology was retained in the Law on the Fundamentals of Lawmaking of the Republic of Lithuania, adopted in 2012 (TPĮ 2012: 14), as well as in the Recommendations for Drafting Legal Acts, approved in 2013 (TAPRR 2013: 5), and their subsequent editions. It is worth noting that, in drafting multilingual European Union legal acts, compliance with language norms is approached in an entirely practical way: the Joint Practical Guide of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission for persons involved in the drafting of European Union legislation states that “[A]cts drafted in compliance with the rules of grammar and punctuation are easier to understand correctly and translate into other languages” (BPV 2015: 1.4.2; this provision also appeared in the first edition of the Joint Practical Guide (BPV 2008: 1.4.2)). Thus, correctness is functionally important in this respect, helping not only at the intralingual but also at the interlingual level.

The requirement to comply with legal terminology requirements in legal acts has been legally established almost since the beginning of the restoration of independence. However, it should be borne in mind that, after independence was restored, Lithuania had almost no legal terminology dictionaries³. Thus, it may be considered that the legal basis was not reliance on any legal terminology dictionaries, but rather on established practice in the use of legal terms, with terms developed according to conventional models.

Linguistic and logical requirements are imposed on terms; they usually include correctness, precision, systematicity, brevity, ease of formation, emotional neutrality, and so on⁴ (Gaivenis 2014 [1994]: 206, 211). These requirements are essentially applicable to any field, but the language of legal acts differs from the language of science: in law, the formal regulation of expression and compliance with prescribed forms of expression and recommendations are important. Although the requirements for legal terms are not systematized in any particular way and are not always clearly and explicitly expressed,

² Among other things, the emphasis has shifted to drafting legal act projects rather than legal acts themselves; instead of legal terminology, the term legal terms appears.

³ No legal terminology dictionaries were published during the period of the first independence (although lists of terms and draft dictionaries did exist). Published at the beginning of the Soviet period, the Dictionary of Legal Terms, compiled by Alfonso Žiurlys (Vilnius: State Publishing House of Political and Scientific Literature, 1954, 240 pp.), remained the only one throughout the Soviet period. Since 1995, a considerable number of translated dictionaries have been published, covering not only terminology but legal language more generally (see Umbrasas 2008 for more detail), but high-quality legal terminography remains lacking even today.

⁴ In earlier publications, K. Gaivenis included among the requirements for terms translatability into other languages and even euphony and uniqueness (Gaivenis 2014 [1979]: 115).

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they are discussed in the drafting recommendations for both national and European Union legal acts.

The first legal acts of restored independence regulating legal language generally called for compliance with the norms of standard language, and eventually a precise provision was introduced: “[T]he terms used in legal acts must be <...> correct” (TAPRR 2013: 6.5). The requirement of correctness in legal acts is essentially a general one: it covers language as a whole and terminology as part of it. The correctness of terms is also linked to all levels of language, encompassing not only word formation, morphology and syntax, but also pronunciation, stress, spelling and punctuation. Questions concerning the influence of other languages and linguistic purity⁵ are also associated with correctness. Earlier, legal acts regulating legal language expressly stated: “International words are used only when there are no Lithuanian equivalents for them” (ĮTNARTĮ 1995: 12; ĮTARR 1998: 1.8). The provision was later elaborated: “Preference should be given to Lithuanian terms. Where necessary, an international term may be given alongside the Lithuanian one (with one of them in parentheses)” (ĮTARR 2002: 6). Nevertheless, implementing the provision to avoid international terms in legal acts was probably quite difficult, given the lack of objective evaluation criteria: native and international terms are not always functionally equivalent, equally widespread or equally established, and artificially promoting one over the other may run counter to usage trends or simply be subjective. Thus, although the criterion of purity is taken into account de facto in terminology practice, provisions concerning international words gradually disappeared from the recommendations for drafting legal acts. Greater attention came to be paid to borrowings introduced through translation, while also allowing equivalents in other languages to be given alongside Lithuanian terms that are not yet sufficiently established: “All common words in other languages used in a legal act must be translated into Lithuanian” (ĮTARR 2002: 6); “Common words in other languages may not be used in a legal act, except for non-Lithuanian words or combinations of words traditionally used in certain fields (most often Latin ones). Where necessary, a word from another language (usually a term) may be given in parentheses alongside the Lithuanian one” (TAPRR 2013: 6.2). The language abbreviation must be indicated alongside the equivalent (TAPRR 2021: 134). Terms now often enter national legal acts from European Union legal acts, and their translation entails addressing borrowing and

⁵ Linguistic and terminological purity is not generally understood as a requirement; rather, it is an extralinguistic principle of language standardization, unrelated to the language system itself, which manifests itself in giving preference to words from one’s own language (Gaivenis, Kaulakienė 2014 [1996]: 229–230).

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other problems leading to a negative attitude towards the language of documents: “Texts full of loanwords, literal translations or jargon are difficult to understand and become a source of criticism of Union legislation, which in such cases is regarded as ‘foreign’” (BPV 2015: 5.4). This gives rise to the aspiration for the text to seem natural, without its translated nature being perceptible.

The requirement of clarity imposed on legal language also applies to legal terminology (law-making in general is based on the principle of clarity (TPĮ 2012: 3)). This requirement can be viewed as the opposite of complexity, obscurity and affectation, giving rise to the aspiration to use simple terms. Drafters of European Union legislation are advised to “endeavour to express the purpose of the legal provision in simple terms so that it can be presented simply. Everyday language should be used as far as possible. Where necessary, clarity of expression should be preferred to stylistic sophistication” (BPV 2015: 1.4.1). Lack of clarity can be an obstacle both for translators of legislation and for those applying it, so “the original text must be entirely straightforward, clear and comprehensible, since if it is too complex or ambiguous, when translated into one or more other Union languages it may become inaccurate, approximate or completely erroneous” (BPV 2015: 5.2). Increasingly, people now speak of fluent, simple, simplified language (English plain language), and analyse possibilities for simplifying legal language and replacing terms with simpler ones so that legal language can be understood without the assistance of specialists (Čės­nienė 2014b). In this context, the concept of intralingual translation of legal language has emerged: the concept of translation is being broadened to include translation within the same language, with the aim of making a legal text more accessible to its target audience, facilitating it for specialists or simplifying it for non-specialists (Čės­nienė 2014a). Nevertheless, practice does not yet appear to show that the drive to simplify legal language has produced any more tangible results.

The requirement for terminological brevity is not singled out in the recommendations for drafting Lithuanian legislation⁶ (nor could it be a strict requirement rather than a recommendation); however, for convenience, the possibility is provided of creating abbreviations for terms in a legal act, which are valid only in that act, while related or implementing legal acts should introduce them separately from

⁶ In the practice of drafting legislation, there is sometimes even an excessive pursuit of terminological brevity at the expense of precision. Brevity is listed among the requirements for terms for translators of EU legislation, with the aim of making a term convenient to use (TV 2006: 1.1). Some opinions hold that the length of a term may indicate either that it is new or that it has not been sufficiently standardized. It is assumed that the better developed and standardized the terminology is, the more short terms there should be (Kaulakienė, Makariūnienė 2014 [1999]: 36). Nevertheless, in standardization practice, brevity is not a priority criterion.

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naujo (TAPRR 2013: 6.5; TAPRR 2021: 116). Rekomendacijose aiškiai pasakyta, kad teisės aktų terminai turi būti tikslūs (TAPRR 2013: 6.5; TAPRR 2021: 11). Čia reikia turėti omenyje, kad tikslumo reikalavimas gali prieštarauti trumpumo reikalavimui. Kita vertus, termino tikslumo samprata gali būti diskusijų objektas. K. Gaivenis tikslumą pirmiausia sieja su vienareikšmiškumu ir reikšmės apibrėžtumu, tačiau pripažįsta, kad šie dalykai sunkiai pasiekiami (Gaivenis 2014 [1994]: 207). Akivaizdu, kad apskritai kalboje terminų vienareikšmiškumas yra utopija, apie jį galima kalbėti nebent tik vienos konkrečios terminų sistemos ribose (Keinys 2003: 50). Terminų dviprasmiškumo vengimas teisės akte (BPV 2015: 6.2) visiškai suprantamas, tačiau vienos reikšmės turėjimas savaime negarantuoja termino tikslumo. Rengiantiems teisės aktus sakoma, kad „[S]iekiant tikslumo ir norint išvengti aiškinimo problemų gali tekti apibrėžti terminą“ (BPV 2015: 6.2.3). Lyginant terminą su apibrėžtimi jau galima kalbėti apie jo tikslumą. Termino tikslumas, be abejo, susijęs su jo semantika, siejasi ir su motyvacija, tačiau, kaip teisingai pastebi K. Gaivenis, negalima sakyti, kad motyvuoti terminai yra tikslūs, o nemotyvuoti – netikslūs (Gaivenis 2014 [1994]: 208). Termino motyvacija gali būti ir neaiški (svarbu, kad nebūtų klaidinanti), bet reikia pripažinti, kad motyvuotų terminų aiškumas didesnis⁷. Vien tik aiškumo savaime neišeina tapatinti su tikslumu, bet paprastai laikoma privalumu, jei terminas gali būti aiškus ir be apibrėžties. Tikslumo matavimas gali būti grindžiamas apibrėžtyje nurodytų požymių atitikimu ir būtų svarbesnis vertinant ne giminius, o rūšinius terminus. Pastarųjų terminų rūšinių požymių įvardijimas distinktyvumo atžvilgiu ypač svarbus, o tai lemia ir tikslumą.

When preparing legal opinions on draft national legislation, an assessment is made of whether the legal terms used in the draft “are consistent with the terms established in the current legal framework, first and foremost in legal acts governing similar legal relationships” (TINTARR 2010: 15.3.3). The need to use terminology consistently, on the basis of legal acts already in force, is also emphasized in the recommendations for drafting European Union legislation (BPV 2015: 6.2.1). Consistency of terminology is also sought within the same legal act, its annexes and implementing legal acts (BPV 2015: 6; 6.2.1). It is important to ensure consistency when drafting amendments to a legal act, so that in the consolidated version

⁷ It is likely, for example, that well-motivated neologisms have a greater chance of taking hold.

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neatsirastų terminologinių skirtybių (TAPR 2021: 111). Taikymo patogumo atžvilgiu gerai, kai sutampa nacionalinių ir Europos Sąjungos teisės aktų terminai, tačiau dėl susiklosčiusių tradicijų tai ne visada pasiekiama ir nebūtinai visada siektina. Terminų nuoseklumo reikalavimas apskritai atsiskleidžia per vienodumo siekį. Europos Sąjungos teisės aktų rengėjams paaiškinama: „Terminijos nuoseklumas reiškia, kad vienodoms sąvokoms reikšti turi būti vartojami tie patys terminai, o tas pats terminas neturi būti vartojamas skirtingoms sąvokoms reikšti“ (BPV 2015: 6.2). Antroji teiginio dalis orientuoja į daugiareikšmiškumą, o jis, kaip rodo praktika, apskritai yra neišvengiamas, tačiau vienareikšmiškumas siektinas bent jau susijusių teisės aktų ribose. Praktikoje dėl daugiareikšmiškumo didelių problemų paprastai nekyla (prireikus padeda apibrėžtis) arba jos yra retos, daugiau problemų kelia sinonimija, ypač kol terminai yra nauji, nes skirtingos raiškos priemonės kartais gali klaidinti, kurti sąvokų skirtingumo iliuziją. Susijusiuose europiniuose teisės aktuose skirtingai išversti tapatūs terminai gali kelti taikymo problemų ir kelti sumaištį tuos teisės aktus įgyvendinančiuose nacionaliniuose teisės aktuose, todėl sinonimų vengimo siekis (BPV 2015: 1.4.1) natūraliai kyla norint užtikrinti terminijos nuoseklumą. Jis pasiekiamas ir per suderinamumą – ES teisės aktų rengėjams pasirenkant vartoti teisės terminus siūloma atsižvelgti į šių aktų daugiakalbį pobūdį, todėl nurodoma vengti sąvokų ir terminų, būdingų tik tam tikroms nacionalinėms teisės sistemoms, juos vartoti atsargiai (BPV 2015: 5; 5.3.2). Kartu, kiek įmanoma, siekiama teisės aktų terminų, jų sampratų derėjimo su terminais mokslo, technikos ir apskritai bendrinėje kalboje (BPV 2015: 6).

The requirement for terminological systematicity is not explicitly mentioned in the recommendations for drafting legislation, but is important in practice and is applied when managing terminology in any field⁸. It can be argued that terms do not function in isolation—they are part of a particular terminological system. Translators of EU legislation are instructed to strive for systematicity in terminology: “When using existing terms or creating new ones, care must be taken to ensure that they fit the system” (TV 2006: 1.1). The requirement of systematicity can be treated as both a logical and a linguistic requirement. K. Gaivenis regards the requirement of terminological systematicity as logical and relates it to the classification of concepts and the logical division

⁸ It should be borne in mind that the principle of systematicity is one of the principles applied in law-making generally, according to which, among other things, the aim is to ensure that legal provisions are consistent with one another (TPĮ 2012: 3).

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basis. Of relevance to terminology is hierarchical classification, in which relations of subordination are established between the groups being classified, and faceted classification, in which the subject matter is classified from various perspectives (Gaivenis 2014 [1994]: 211–213). Thus, in this respect, a term in a legal act must not be placed at an inappropriate level of classification (e.g., a generic term among specific terms) or in an inappropriate classification group (for instance, when classifying actions, the result of an action should not be included among them). In practice, however, systematicity is often assessed in terms of a term’s expression, while also taking account of its content and the basis for classification; that is, linguistic and logical requirements operate together here, with the aim of ensuring that the forms of terms in a particular classification group are consistent with one another. And this is not only a matter of typicality in term formation (mentioned by K. Gaivenis (2014 [1994]: 213)), for example, selecting the same derivational category or the same derivational format, but also of standardizing the syntactic constructions used as terms, coordinating the number of words, and so on.

Having mentioned word formation, the requirement of derivational convenience for terms should also be noted. Derivational convenience⁹ is understood as a term’s suitability for forming new words semantically and formally dependent on it, that is, other terms (Gaivenis 2014 [1994]: 210). The recommendations for drafting legal acts do not address this, and in practice this requirement is indeed not considered one of the most important in the management of legal-act terminology, although it is not ignored. Translators of EU legal acts are instructed that a term should be convenient for forming new terms; this is called the requirement of productivity (TV 2006: 1.1). Admittedly, in linguistics productivity is generally understood as a characteristic of a derivational format or a particular derivational type, but it can also be attributed to a base word.

Stability is sometimes included among the requirements for terms; this is done, for example, in recommendations for translators of EU legal acts. They state that “terms must be stable, not changed every few or dozen years. Sometimes established and widely used terms that are not entirely accurate are better than accurate new ones, because it is not easy to replace a term in users’ minds” (TV 2006: 1.1). Nevertheless, stability is less a requirement than a principle of term standardization, which in practice people do indeed try to observe. According to K. Gaivenis, “[T]he aim of terminology standardization is not to accelerate changes in terms, but to maintain the invariability of terminology microsystems” (Gaivenis 2014

9 Derivational convenience has also been called derivational potential, derivational prospectivity (Keinys 1980: 45–46).

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[1996]: 227). Generally, terms that have not yet become established and that vary are changed, while traditional ones tend to be left untouched¹⁰.

REQUIREMENTS FOR DEFINITIONS OF TERMS IN LEGAL ACTS

Among the logical requirements for terms, K. Gaivenis includes the requirement that definitions be¹¹ precise (Gaivenis 2014 [1994]: 211). However, it is inaccurate to regard this as a requirement for the terms themselves. Requirements for definitions can justifiably be regarded as a separate set. Drawing on logic and other criteria, scholars distinguish from two or several types of definitions to as many as several dozen (for more detail, see Rimkutė 2021: 180–184). There are, of course, not as many requirements for definitions; they depend on the intended recipient and medium of publication (e.g., a textbook, scholarly monograph, terminology dictionary, terminology standard, etc.). Like requirements for terms, requirements for definitions can also be linguistic and logical. Among Lithuanian linguists, K. Gaivenis has probably devoted the most attention to definitions of terms, but he has not systematized the requirements for definitions in his works. This scholar noted that definitions of terms may differ from ordinary lexicographical definitions, and that the model of identifying the nearest generic concept and specific differences should be used when formulating definitions, subject to these principal rules: “a) a definition must be adequate, i.e., the scope of the concept being defined must equal the scope of the defining concept; b) it must not contain a vicious circle; c) it must be precise, clear, and unambiguous; d) it must not be negative” (Gaivenis 2014 [1979]: 116). Other sources also specify requirements such as coordinating definitions with one another, identifying essential features, striving for brevity, avoiding explanations using words identical to the term, and so on (for more detail, see Rimkutė 2021: 184–185).

Requirements for definitions of terms customary in scholarship can at least in part also be applied when formulating definitions of terms in legal acts; however, national

¹⁰ K. Gaivenis has described the intersection of tradition and innovation in terminology with reference to the pursuit of progress and functional appropriateness: “Some compilers of terminology standards insist strictly that terminology standards be mandatory and that the terminology they present be frozen for decades. This requirement is unrealistic with respect to a terminology system, because the system’s components must continually change and renew themselves. Only in this way will the system improve steadily. Otherwise, the system will deteriorate. Thus, the principle of stability in terminology does not preclude change in the system, but merely restrains its purposeless disruption. When assessing an established term, the first question to consider is not how the new term is better, but why the old term is bad” (Gaivenis 2014 [1996]: 228–229).

¹¹ K. Gaivenis mentions the precision of definitions, but the term definition is now generally used. The management of legal-act terminology has contributed precisely to the dissemination of this term, since it is definition that is used in the Law on the Terminology Bank (LRTBĮ 2003) and its implementing legal acts.

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The recommendations for drafting legal acts impose very few requirements on term definitions. The requirement of correctness applies to definitions of terms in legal acts, just as it does to terms themselves, since it is a general linguistic requirement for legal acts. Almost no logical requirements are imposed; only restrictions on the formulation of definitions are established: “[A] concept defined in one law must not be defined in other laws, unless the definition of the concept in a special law is characteristic only of a certain area of relations” (TAPRR 2013: 6.5; TAPRR 2021: 11). It is also established that “[C]oncepts used in laws or already defined in them must not be defined in legal acts implementing laws, although concepts used only in that implementing legal act may be defined” (TAPRR 2021: 11). If the terms used in a legal act are understood as defined in other legal acts, the acts whose definitions are followed must be identified (TAPRR 2021: 35, 48). As for the content of definitions, the only stipulation is that they “should not set out requirements, conditions, etc.” (TAPRR 2021: 11). Similarly, drafters of EU legal acts are instructed that definitions of terms must not contain independent normative provisions¹² (BPV 2015: 14), and that it is better not to include in definitions matters that could be specified as the scope of application or subject matter of a legal act (BPV 2015: 13.4). Drafters of legal acts are reminded that they must adhere throughout the text to the definitions of terms they have provided, and that terms must be used precisely with the meaning defined (BPV 2015: 6.4). Attempts are made to constrain the meanings of terms in legal acts: “[T]he definition of a term must not contradict its ordinary meaning” (BPV 2015: 14.1). Essentially, the aim is for terms to be understood as they are ordinarily understood in the regulated field, and to be clear even without a definition. At the same time, the need for a definition is recognized where the ordinary understanding is narrowed or broadened in a legal act.

The Law on the Terms Bank of the Republic of Lithuania (LRTBĮ 2003), which has been in force for almost two decades, and its implementing legal acts have led to relatively considerable attention being devoted to the management of terms in legal acts. Since 2005, the Terms Bank of the Republic of Lithuania has been gradually populated by state institutions with terms from legal acts, while the Terminology Subcommittee of the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language, meeting on average every week

12 The rationale is based not only on the logic of definitions but also on obstacles to practical application. “Independent rules must not be included in definitions, not only in order to maintain logical precision. If such elements are included in term definitions, there is a risk that readers, when interpreting them, will fail to notice those normative elements that are not presented in one place together with the other normative elements” (BPV 2015: 14.4).

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(except in summer), at almost every meeting discusses several dozen terms from laws, ministerial orders, and other legal acts¹³. Experience shows that relatively few terms prompt discussion; most comments made at meetings concern definitions. These comments are often editorial in nature and are in one way or another related to the choice of wording, but questions also frequently arise concerning clarity, precision, and other aspects related to the content of the concept. One possible reason for problems in defining terms in legal acts is the inadequate regulation of term definitions in this field.

In general, terms in legal acts are defined in three ways: explanatory (by specifying characteristics), enumerative, and referential. The requirement in the rules for drafting legal acts not to define what has already been defined, together with the direct application of some European Union legal acts, leads to the use of referential definitions, for example¹⁴:

accreditation – as defined in Regulation (EC) No 765/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 July 2008 setting out the requirements for accreditation and market surveillance relating to the marketing of products and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 339/93.

consular office of the Republic of Lithuania – the concept is understood as defined in the Consular Statute.

wholesale trade in veterinary medicinal products – the concept corresponds to the concept “wholesale distribution” defined in Article 36 of Regulation (EU) 2019/64.

substantial modification of a clinical trial of a medicinal product – this concept corresponds to the concept “substantial modification” and is used with the same meaning as defined in point 13 of Article 2(2) of Regulation (EU) No 536/2014.

Sometimes an attempt is made to specify characteristics while also providing a reference, for example:

final recipient – a legal or natural person to whom funding is provided from the resources of a financial instrument. This concept corresponds to the concept “final recipient” set out in point 12 of Article 2 of Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013.

electricity grid congestion – a situation in which the electricity grid is unable to accept the entire quantity of electricity offered by electricity market participants because the grid

¹³ In autumn 2022, the Terms Bank of the Republic of Lithuania contained approximately 18,000 term entries from legal acts approved by the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language. For more on the concept, content, and legal basis of this database, see Umbrasas 2013.

¹⁴ The examples below are taken from term sets in the Terms Bank of the Republic of Lithuania and from draft legal acts submitted to it. The specific legal acts or their drafts are not identified, as this is not particularly important here. The focus is more on the expression patterns themselves than on where they originated.

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elements could not withstand such an amount of this energy. This concept corresponds to the concept of “overload” set out in Article 2(4) of Regulation (EU) No 2019/943.

Such dual provision partly contradicts the existing requirements for drafting legal acts, but, where necessary, allows the wording of the definition to be adjusted, linguistically edited, made more fluent, and so on. In general, the use of cross-references to link terms makes it possible to clarify a term if necessary (as can be seen from the examples already given), or to replace incorrect terms (until they are changed in the related legal acts), as, for example, in this case:

hare-like animals – this concept corresponds to the concept “lagomorphs”, defined in point 1.4 of Part 1 of Annex I to Regulation (EC) No 853/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 laying down specific hygiene rules for food of animal origin.

It should be added that cross-referential definitions sometimes arise for reasons internal to the legal act as well: if a concept has many characteristics, which are detailed in a separate article of the legal act, instead of listing those characteristics in the definition, a reference is simply made to an article of the same legal act, for example:

significant insurance risk – an insurance risk meeting the criteria set out in Article 10 of this Law.

The system and hierarchy of legal acts affect the definitions in legal acts: in this case, the cross-referential explanation of concepts is justified by the very nature of lawmaking. For users, on the one hand, the convenience of using a legal act is reduced (they have to consult other legal acts as well), but, on the other hand, uniformity of concepts makes it easier to amend provisions.

Nevertheless, concepts in legal acts are most often explained not by cross-reference but by stating their characteristics or listing all the elements that make up the concept. Enumerative definitions explicitly delimit the content of a concept: only what is specifically stated is included, for example:

consular post – a foreign State’s embassy general consulate, consulate, vice-consulate or consular agency in the Republic of Lithuania.

milk quality indicators – total bacterial count (thousand CFU/ml), somatic cell count (thousand/ml), inhibitory (suppressive) substances, and milk freezing point (m°C).

advertising activity operator – an advertiser, an advertising service provider.

Enumerative definitions are not very common in legal acts, because concepts usually comprise too many elements for all of them to be listed,

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or all possible cases are not even known in advance, the scope of the elements is not finite. Since enumeration makes the set of elements finite, adding further elements would require amending the legal act. In the case of enumeration, the relationship between the term and its definition may pose challenges, for example:

personal healthcare institution providing vaccination services – Kaunas Hospital of the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, a public institution; Santaros Clinics Hospital of Vilnius University, a public institution; Klaipėda University Hospital, a public institution; Republican Hospital of Panevėžys, a public institution; Republican Hospital of Šiauliai, a public institution.

Such a definition implies a definitive list of personal healthcare institutions providing vaccination services, but, as we may infer, in reality vaccination services are provided not only by the entities listed here. The problem is that the draft legal act from which this definition is taken concerns only a specific vaccination with a particular vaccine. This shows that the aim in this case is not to define the term provided (which is too broad for the context), but merely to indicate who is assigned the vaccination functions specified in the legal act. Consequently, this is not a matter of definition; the entities obliged by the legal act would be better specified in an article of that act rather than in the section on terms and definitions.

To achieve greater conceptual precision and clarity, in some cases an enumerative definition may be combined with an indication of characteristics, for example:

quality indicators for drinking water supply and wastewater management services – indicators (for drinking water supply, the pressure of supplied drinking water, interruptions to drinking water supply, drinking water quality, customer and consumer service, wastewater collection, flooding with wastewater, and interruptions to wastewater management) used to determine the quality of drinking water supply and wastewater management services.

The most characteristic definitions in legal acts are explanatory (feature-based). Such a definition usually identifies, as its point of reference, a more general concept (sometimes more than one) and the distinguishing characteristics, for example:

conformity assessment body – a legal person or a branch, registered in the Republic of Lithuania, of an undertaking established in a European Economic Area state, which assesses conformity by measuring, monitoring, testing and inspecting the parameters specified in legal acts and/or standards.

consolidating entity – an entity whose financial statement data are consolidated into the set of consolidated financial statements of a group of public sector entities.

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project monitoring indicators – indicators describing the economic viability of aid recipients, their financial position, and project implementation.

Identifying the distinguishing features of a concept is one of the most important objectives that a definition writer should set. Let us compare the following explanations:

founder of a political party – a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania or a citizen of another Member State of the European Union permanently residing in the Republic of Lithuania.

founder of a political party – a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania who is at least 18 years old and is establishing a political party.

Unlike the second case, in the first case the defining formulation contains no features that would make it a definition of the term being defined. Splitting the implied proposition a founder of a political party may be a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania or a citizen of another Member State of the European Union permanently residing in the Republic of Lithuania into two parts does not automatically turn the second part into a definition; it needs to be reformulated by specifying features and linking them to the term. Once the features of the concept have been identified, the second step would be to assess the term itself. Let us compare:

benefits administrator – an institution authorized by the Government of the Republic of Lithuania.

administrator of state benefits intended for child maintenance – an institution authorized by the Government of the Republic of Lithuania to administer state benefits intended for child maintenance.

In the first case, there is likewise no logical relationship between the term and the purported definition (it merely indicates who is entrusted with the function of administering benefits, but that is not the object of the definition). Where features are present in the definition (the second example), it becomes clear which benefits are meant, creating the basis for naming the concept with a more precise term that better reflects its features. Aligning the term and the definition with one another is the main task involved in standardizing the terms and definitions of legal acts.

In general, it should be said that the definitions of terms in legal acts do not always conform to the classical model of definition known in scholarship, per genus proximum et differentiam specificam (where the nearest genus and specific differences are indicated). The reason is that a document does not necessarily seek to define a concept—that is, to specify its features and distinguish it from other concepts. Often, the aim is simply to limit the set of elements included in a concept within the context of a legal act, for example:

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legal person – a legal person, another organisation, or a subdivision thereof established in a Member State of the European Union or the European Economic Area.

project – a project prepared to meet business, professional, scientific, research, and other needs, excluding consumption, and published on a crowdfunding platform, for the implementation of which the project owner seeks to raise crowdfunding funds.

As can be seen, the explanation here is tautological¹⁵ (this is generally regarded as a defect in definitions), but in this case the law-making authority does not seek to specify the characteristics of a legal person (this is more a matter of legal theory), but merely indicates which legal persons are relevant to it. The same applies to the project: for convenience, an overly broad term is selected based on the essence of the matter (after all, not just any project is of interest), and the range of relevant projects is restricted. When limiting the scope of a concept in a definition, both the listing method and the method of specifying certain characteristics may be applied, in part. Depending on the field and the needs, the same term (matching expression does not in itself indicate identity of concept) may be defined in different legal acts by reference, by listing, or by specifying characteristics, for example:

credit institution – a credit institution as defined in Article 4(1)(1) of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 on prudential requirements for credit institutions and investment firms and amending Regulation (EU) No 648/2012 (OJ 2013 L 176, p. 1), its branch, or a branch of a credit institution of a foreign country established in the Republic of Lithuania.

credit institution – a bank, a branch of a foreign bank, the Central Credit Union of Lithuania, or a credit union.

credit institution – an undertaking licensed to engage in, and engaged in, the receipt of deposits or other repayable funds from non-professional market participants and their lending.

As mentioned, the recommendations for drafting legal acts do not, in essence, specify how the terms used in legal acts should be defined. Although it could at least partly be argued that general terminology principles and requirements apply, setting out certain definition models and requirements would likely facilitate legislative work, particularly since this area has specific features not characteristic of other settings in which terms are presented (e.g. terminology dictionaries). Broader research into the terms used in legal acts and their definitions would be useful for this purpose.

15 Tautology – a logical error in a proof or definition in which the concept being defined is described using itself or its synonym (VLEe).

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GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

The legal regulation of the management of legal act terminology through the Law on the Term Bank of the Republic of Lithuania and its implementing legislation encourages an assessment of the requirements set for legal act terms. The recommendations for drafting legal act projects require compliance with the requirements of legal terminology and the norms of standard Lithuanian, and state clearly that legal act terms must be precise and correct and consistent with terms in legal acts already in force. Thus, requirements of linguistic correctness, logical precision, and consistency are considered, one might say, the most important, because they are stated directly. The requirement that terms be consistent with terms in other legal acts partly presupposes a requirement of systematicity as well. The latter requirement, like the possible requirement that terms be clear, is linked to the principles of clarity and systematicity generally applied in lawmaking. Other requirements for terms known in scholarship, such as brevity, ease of derivation, and emotional neutrality, are not explicitly expressed in the recommendations for drafting legal acts. In practice, brevity is pursued in legal acts, but it is not understood as a requirement; rather, it is driven by practical considerations and the desire to ensure ease of use. Conflicts between precision and brevity are sometimes not easily resolved, so the recommendations for drafting legal acts provide for the use of short forms of terms, thereby ensuring that agreed terms function more easily in the text.

It is customary to define the terms used in legal acts, but the recommendations for drafting legal acts essentially do not specify how this should be done; they merely distinguish the normative provisions of legal acts from term definitions, that is, they do not allow requirements, conditions, and the like to be set out in definitions (these should be set out in the text of the legal act). In definitions, drafters of legal acts sometimes try to indicate the subject matter regulated by the legal act, the functions assigned to entities, and the like, but these are matters for substantive provisions in the text of the legal act, not for definitions of concepts. Practice shows that terms in legal acts are usually defined by explanatory (feature-indicating), enumerative, and referential means. Referential definitions have arisen from the principle—based on the links and hierarchy between legal acts—that terms in higher-level legal acts, as well as terms defined in other related legal acts, should not be defined again. The formulation model for referential definitions is not standardized; it cannot be ruled out that the direct application of some European Union legal acts may lead to an increase in such definitions. Enumerative definitions are sometimes convenient in legal acts, but any significantly wider use of them is essentially limited by

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the nature of the concepts themselves—not often does a concept encompass a predetermined, finite set of elements. It is usually more convenient to indicate characteristics so that a concept can include both known and potential elements. The logical requirements for definitions of terms known in scholarship may be applied to the wording of definitions, but the specific nature of legal acts suggests that recommendations on term definitions should also be included in the recommendations for drafting legal acts. The current regulation of definitions of legal act terms is inadequate. In general, it should be understood that a definition is the foundation of terminology management—it is the basis for assessing the precision and clarity of a term, and therefore the implementation of requirements for the term itself also depends on the definition.

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ON THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE TERMS OF LEGAL ACTS AND THEIR DEFINITIONS

Summary

The article analyses the requirements for legal terms not only from a terminological point of view, but also from the point of view of legal regulation. The aim is to find out what requirements are placed on legal terms and their definitions in the sources governing the drafting of legislation, to assess the sufficiency of these requirements, and to provide some practice-based insights and recommendations. The focus of the paper is on the terminological aspects of the legislation adopted in Lithuania, i.e., national legislation, but the context of European Union legislation is also considered where appropriate, as the terminological nature of these pieces of legislation is similar.

The guidelines for drafting legal acts oblige compliance with the requirements of legal terminology and the norms of the standard Lithuanian language; they make it clear that the terminology of legal acts must be precise, correct, and consistent with the terminology of the existing legal acts. The requirements for linguistic correctness, logical precision, and consistency are thus considered to be of paramount importance, as they are explicitly stated. The requirement that terms be consistent with the terms in other legal acts implies, to some extent, the requirement of systematicity. The latter requirement, as well as the requirement of the clarity of terms, is linked to the

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principles of clarity and systematicity applied to legislation in general. Other requirements for terms known in terminology theory, such as conciseness and derivability, are not explicitly expressed in the drafting guidelines.

It is common practice for legislation to define the terms to be used, but the drafting guidelines do not, in principle, specify how this should be done. The guidelines only distinguish regulatory provisions in legislation from definitions of terms, i.e., they do not allow requirements, conditions, etc. to be imposed in the definitions. In practice, it appears that terms are usually defined in legislation by reference to the attributes of the concept, by listing the elements included in the concept or by reference. The pattern of the formulation of definitions is not standardised. While the formulation of definitions may be subject to the logical requirements of definitions known in terminology theory, the specific nature of legislation suggests that it would be worthwhile to include guidance on the definition of terms in the drafting guidelines. The current regulation of definitions of terms in legislation is insufficient.

Gauta 2022-11-03

Alvydas Umbrasas

Lietuvių kalbos institutas

P. Vileišio g. 5, LT-10308 Vilnius

E. paštas [email protected]

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