Requiescat in Pace

The law lords have decided to ban legal Latin from English courtrooms. And Welsh courtooms, too, I suppose. This is all in aid of making the law less mysterious and opening it up to the non-legal practitioner.

A more perfectly idiotic rationale would be hard to imagine. It is, you'll pardon the expression, prima facie preposterous. We went through this in California some years ago. I have news for our English cousins: those who don't know what mandamus is still won't know what a writ of mandate is. One who doesn't know what a subpoena is all about is going to be equally befuddled by a summons.

It is difficult to avoid the belief that this has little to do with clearing up "mystery" in the profession, and quite a lot to do with a world view that looks at Latin and anything else to do with the classics as elitist. (And elitism, as we all know, is very bad.) It seems also to be a part of the general dislike of our intellectual ancestors and our history, all that made us what we are. Those who would like to change human nature by fiat don't like to be reminded that civilizations are organic; change takes time and can only occur in accordance with the nature of the thing being changed.

The voice in opposition most often quoted is John Gray and his book "Lawyer's Latin". A several-month-old article in The Guardian quotes him and at least partially agrees with him here. A recent AP article (not on line) quotes from the foreword to Gray's book by Lord Deedes, the former editor of the Daily Telegraph:


"A little knowledge of Latin, it seems to me, is also a useful reminder that although the ancients were without so much that we have today – the jet aircraft. . . .the mobile telephone, Internet, precision bombing. . ..—they possessed a certain wisdom and a gift for conveying it which is beyond us today,” Deedes wrote.

And far from being elitist, he says, a little knowledge of Latin brings humility.

“I am not half as clever or as wise as I would like to think I am,” Deedes says. “Somebody thought what I think now a couple of thousand or more years ago and expressed it with greater clarity than I can muster.”