Accessing Legal Information Across Boundaries: A New Challenge

Internationalization and increasing globalization of market economies and social patterns of life have created a situation where the need for legal information from foreign countries and from different legal systems is greater than ever before. This requirement is not new, but it is now becoming more and more crucial and hard to meet under the pressure of the rapid and complex cross-border transactions occurring between people of different legal cultures and languages. It is no doubt that the exchange of information is largely dependent on language. It is intended not only as a system of symbols, but also as a mean of communication, a tool for mediating between different cultures. If we consider the language of the law, its properties have a major impact on the exchange of legal information. In fact, the language of the law is the expression of legal identities that vary according to systems and countries where different languages are used to express legislation, case law and doctrine as main components of the various legal cultures.