Cataphatic code of law

Abstract

‘Understandability’ or ‘simplicity’ of law are plausible terms which should not be used in a more rigorous assessment of the quality of any legal regulation due to the fact that they are rather intuitive. Instead, another qualifier, namely cataphacity, should be used.

Cataphacity denotes a recourse to a legal code which effectively lowers transactional costs normally associated with the decoding of legal norms from legislative provisions borne by those to whom these norms are primarily addressed. Thus, cataphatic legislative practice requires that the level of cataphacity (or, alternatively, the threshold of cataphacity) and the cognitive competence of primary users of a given piece of law be adequately matched with each other. This match also implies a prior identification of the relevant pragmatic model within which legal norms are to intervene.

As a result, cataphacity is a gradable variable which is dependent on the level of aspiration of law-makers and their own judgment of legal cognitive abilities of those to whom the law pertains. High cataphatic thresholds create significant cognitive barriers, whereas low ones make law accessible, since law is then expressed in a simple, plain and, therefore, widely understandable language.

However, low cataphatic thresholds are rarely associated with good legislative practices. The very substance of regulation may be complex. So may be the pragmatic model of legislation. Also, the existing framework of legal norms may require quite a high degree of regulatory rigidity, also in terms of semantics and syntax used in legislative codes. Moreover, circumstances of
regulation may be such that they require of law-makers adoption of a more active approach where they would have to make a recourse to the authoritative nature of a legal language capable of inducing a desired level of cataphacity (i.e. to impel a certain level of cognitive competence). Such
an activity would then result in the reduction of impact of natural rules of communication in law compliance and law enforcement settings.