Swedish News:

Legal jargon impossible to understand.  

  • What does “eljest” really mean? The sign above reads: “Apart from that it is like otherwise.”
  • Legal jargon impossible to understand
    Do you understand what “ehuru” and “eljest” mean? For those of you who don’t, ehuru means although, and eljest means otherwise.
    "Though many don’t know the meaning of words like these, they [the lawyers] use a mumbo jumbo without any sense,” says Christina Ramberg, professor in civil rights at Stockholm University.
    And judge of appeal for western Sweden, Gunnel Alenbratt, agrees that older lawyers express themselves in a better, more straightforward way.
    “With a little bit of experience you see that it doesn’t have to be so complicated,” she says. “You can write clearly even in juridicial matters.” The Swedish courts were given Språkrådets (the Swedish Language Council) prize last year for their well-written verdicts. “We work a lot with disposition and captioning,” says Alenbratt. “We try to make the sentences easy to read. Lawyers are usually great at writing long sentences.”
    The courts in Sweden try to make a sentence easier by avoiding words like “ehuru” and “eljest” and instead use “fastän/trots or annars/på annat sätt.