Abstract

This document is for anybody who creates or helps create legal and related documents. It builds, and relies, on the foundation for plain language in ISO 24495-1, Plain language - Governing Principles and Guidelines. This document will add guidance and techniques to help authors make sure that people affected by legal and related documents can readily understand, exercise, and carry out their rights and responsibilities. When readers cannot find, understand or use legal information in a document, the consequences can be devastating, even life-threatening. For individuals, the inability to understand legal information - to access justice - interferes with the most basic human rights: the ability to earn a living, obtain housing, make sound medical and financial decisions, pursue and defend legal rights, and more. For governments and businesses, the problems of poor legal communication include increased costs, reduced efficiency, and reduced effectiveness and compliance. The widest use of plain legal language is for governing documents, like legislation and regulations, documents that govern personal or organizational relationships, like financial, housing, and medical agreements, and documents that cover other relationships, like powers of attorney, wills, privacy policies, and terms of use. But this document also applies to other legal communications, like advice letters, judicial opinions, jury instructions, forms, human resources (and other) policies, contracts (whether the contract is between an individual and an organization, or between organizations). This document explains how to apply principles from ISO 24495-1 to legal situations that possibly require authors to reach multiple audiences, with vastly different needs, to adhere to specific structural and design requirements, to explain complex and nuanced legal concepts, and to explain unfamiliar processes that readers have to navigate as they exercise rights or carry out legal responsibilities. As is the case with ISO 24495-1, the aim is for this document to work in most languages, in most sectors, and for most documents that communicate legal information. This document reflects the most recent research on plain legal language and the experience of plain-legal-language experts. To the extent possible, this document allows for differences due to different legal systems, for example systems based on British Common Law, French Civil Law and South African Roman Law. This document’s guidelines are recommendations. They do not establish requirements. When localizing this document, national standards bodies may adapt and expand this document to achieve the goals of plain language in their own languages and in the context of their own legal systems. While this document covers the essential elements of plain legal language, it has some intentional limits: It does not cover all types of communication. It applies only to printed or digital information that is primarily in the form of text. However, it is possible that creators of other types of communications, such as podcasts and videos, find this document useful as well. It does not include existing technical guidance about accessibility and digital documents, although this document’s guidance can apply to both. For guidance on accessibility, authors of digital documents are urged to consider the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and EN 301549, Accessibility requirements for ICT products and services. Later parts of this series might provide case studies, best practices and other supporting information.

Begin

2024-06-13

Planned document number

DIN ISO 24495-2

Project number

10500739

Responsible national committee

NA 105-00-07-02 AK - Plain language  

Responsible international committee

ISO/TC 37/WG 11 - Plain language