Month: June 2025

Weird Legal Words You (Maybe) Need to Know: Nomography

rebeccajowers Vocabulary Building

A perhaps-not-so-well-known legal term is “nomography,” defined as the art of drafting laws, or a treatise on the drafting of laws (from the Greek term for “law,” νόμος or nómos). In English nomography is more commonly known as “legislative drafting,” and in Spanish is called técnica legislativa or técnica normativa (and, of course, nomografía).

Much has been said of their different legislative drafting styles when comparing and contrasting civil law and common law systems. Legislative texts in civil law jurisdictions are described as broadly outlining general principles in codes, with subsequent secondary legislation, regulations and judicial interpretation ultimately filling in the gaps. In contrast, common law statutes are seen as more explicit, yielding longer, more detailed texts. As an example, the UK’s Companies Act 2006 contains 1,300 sections and 16 schedules, being the longest piece of legislation in British parliamentary history. An interesting analysis of “Legislative drafting style: civil law vs. common law” is available here in English and French in this Canadian publication (pp. 23-51).

False Friends in Spanish-English Legal Translation: When “autorizado” doesn’t mean “authorized”

rebeccajowers False Friends

Autorizado/a and “authorized” should perhaps be classified as partial cognates, since in many legal contexts autorizado/a may certainly be translated as “authorized.” Examples include expressions such as distribuidor autorizado (“authorized distributor”); firma autorizada (“authorized signature”); personal autorizado (“authorized personnel), capital social autorizado (“authorized share capital”) or uso no autorizado de la marca (“unauthorized trademark use”). But, for example, when referring to notarial instruments autorizado generally means “certified.” In that regard, a documento autorizado por notario is a “document certified by a notary,” a “notarially-certified instrument” or perhaps simply a “notarial (or) notarized document (or) instrument.”

And autorizado/a may also mean “authoritative,” as in la más autorizada opinion (“the most authoritative opinion”) or la versión más autorizada (“the most authoritative version”). Thus, the expression autorizada doctrina may be appropriately translated as “authoritative academic opinion” or “authoritative legal scholarship” when doctrina refers to the writings of law professors and legal scholars. And in an additional context, la autorizada doctrina del Tribunal Constitucional denotes the “authoritative caselaw of the Constitutional Court,” doctrina in this sense referring to the court’s doctrina jurisprudencial, its “established (or) settled caselaw”.