Coronavirus regulations: out with impenetrable legalese & in with pictures, graphs & diagrams, say Charles Auld & Kate Harrington
- Current coronavirus regulations are to be found in numerous precisely worded but borderline incomprehensible statutory instruments.
- The government could ensure far greater understanding and adherence by presenting the regulations in ways that everyone can understand.
As everybody needs to comply with the COVID-19 restrictions, is it too much to ask that they be drafted in such a way that the general public can understand them? Sadly, however, we have been presented with a plethora of statutory instruments so complex that they are barely understandable by lawyers. If the government had recognised that public accessibility was the primary consideration, it would surely have issued the regulations using diagrams and tables, rather than creating a linguistic behemoth that can only be properly understood by someone who has access to a substantial database of statutes and statutory instruments.
For the man on the Clapham omnibus
It is said that the much-maligned Richard III ensured the publication of statutes in
