It is no secret to Russians that the wording of their country’s laws is often confusing, but research has found that many are written in language harder to understand than a notoriously complex work on metaphysics.
A researcher at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics compared the wording of more than 600 laws with Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, written in the 18th century. Some 87 laws were more complex than the philosopher’s book in terms of wording, sentence length and comprehensibility.
Alexander Knutov, who compiled the report, said a lack of control over the drafting of laws meant that it had become accepted practice for legislators to use overly complicated language. “There are no filters to exclude convoluted wording,” he said.
Kommersant,
