RI legalese needs revision: Expert

A. Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Noted legal expert Harkristuti Harkrisnowo suggested on Thursday that long sentences and foreign terms be avoided in legal documents to make legal language easy to understand for ordinary people.

"The use of long sentences and foreign terms means legal language can only be understood by lawyers. It seems legal language has been separated from the Indonesian language," Harkristuti of the University of Indonesia said in a plenary session of the 8th Indonesian Language Congress.

She said long sentences and foreign words could be found in laws, legal circulars, contracts and dossiers.

Many foreign terms, especially Dutch, were common since Indonesian laws were based on Dutch laws.

Some English legal terms have also entered the country's legal system, especially laws related to issues on bankruptcy and commercial courts.

Harkristuti acknowledged that changing the style of legal language was not easy as it had already become a practice of legal practitioners who want to avoid misinterpretation.

"We have to follow principles in Indonesian language to avoid misinterpretation and multiple interpretations," she said.

She suggested experts on law and Indonesian language should meet to formulate Indonesian legal terms, concepts and interpretations in a bid to develop Indonesia's legal language.

Meanwhile, head of the State Administrative Institute (LAN) Anwar Suprijadi said that there was an increasing tendency to use foreign terms, especially English, in state administrative affairs and activities.

Anwar claimed foreign terms were used since there were no similar words in the Indonesian language or the Indonesian translations were not precise.

"But the problem is foreign terms are often used in the wrong context," he said in a panel discussion at the congress.

He said the use of Bahasa Indonesia has a strong legal basis as it is the only official language mentioned in the constitution.