IS IT TIME FOR ACTIVIST ACADEMICS and other public spirited individuals, who are active on social media platforms, like X or Facebook, to follow the advice of James Stephen while drafting/posting anything on such platforms? James Stephen’s advice was, of course, not meant for them. It was meant for legislative drafters:
“I have had on many occasions, to draft Acts of Parliament, which, although they may be easy to understand, people continually try to misunderstand, and in which therefore it is not enough to attain to a degree of precision which a person reading in good faith can understand; but it is necessary to attain if possible to a degree of precision which a person reading in bad faith cannot misunderstand. It is all the better if he cannot pretend to misunderstand it.”
(emphasis supplied)
The legislative drafters who fail to reach that higher degree of precision do not face the threat of criminal prosecution at the behest of those who tend to or pretend to misunderstand the law but, these days, the people who post their comments on social media platforms do. In the recent past, some of their social media posts have led to their arrest and detention at the behest of those who have learnt to take offence even from the most unoffending words for political gains. Thus, those who air their views on social media platforms, perforce, need to take James Stephen’s advice more seriously than legislative drafters.
The real question is - Is it possible to reach to a degree of precision, while writing or posting anything, which would ensure that even “a person reading in bad faith cannot misunderstand”?
