A writ by any other name...
AB INITIO it should be said that there is a good prima facie case for simplifying the language used in courts. Instead of using un-understandable un-pronounceable Latin, can't we use plain good English?
Lawyers should pro bono publico , be much more straightforward in the way they speak pendente lite . Out should go, inter alia , hearings in camera or ex parte . In should come hearings in private or without notice. Plaintiffs can be claimants. We will no longer live in terror of writs. Instead we will tremble at claim forms. Mr Anton Piller will soon be forgotten except in cobwebbed old tomes. The eponymous legal term will be succeeded, ad infinitum and sine die , by a plain old search order.
We don't know whether traditional lawyers will view the change as a casus belli or as an act of force majeure which defy restitutio in integrum . The lingua franca of the law may be baffling to the lay person but that, surely, was part of its charm and all of its function.
If you say that the commissioner is “a judge in his own cause," it's a phrase which lacks any undertones of majesty or even mystery. It would be very impressive and satisfying if you pronounce that he had offended the basic principle of nemo debet esse judex in propria . No Hon'ble judge would then shrug the matter aside so lightly? Per contra , don't you think Matters that are sub judice or lis pendens have a forbidding ring to them which is sadly lacking in "pending litigation". Ultra vires is not without authority as a piece of legalistic verbiage; habeas corpus , translated into English, will lose a definite body.
There could be a serious impact on another old legal concept, derived either from the Latin feudum , the Old English feoh , or some say, the Frankish fehuod . Modern lawyers tend to refer to them simply as "fees". They customarily arrive in the form of a "bill" (from Latin, bulla) and elaborately set out the price of, exempli gratia , interlocutory this, mandamus that, half a dozen subpoena s, two dozen affidavits and a fair old quantum of res ipsa loquiturs . The distilled wisdom of centuries goes into the construction of these magnificent documents.
Can lawyers be required to abandon this age old modus operandi and tell their clients what they've been up to in plain English? You can't imagine a, greater scandalum magnum for the great community of lawyers, who the Finance Minister, believes can never be accused of providing any service.
Caveat feles obesus !