This dissertation lists some basic characteristics of legal texts. It skims the basic milestones in the development of Slovenian legislative language and outlines the education for writing legal documents. It uses actual examples of laws to show the possible ambiguity of legal documents if pleonastic negation is used. On the basis of an in-depth linguistic analysis and the principles of legal writing, it advises against the use of pleonastic negation in legal documents after unambiguous verbs of rejection and in conditional clauses with the conjunction unless (razen če). In temporal clauses with the conjunction until (dokler), however, the use is warranted. The principle of understandability is suggested as the main criterion for determining the adequacy of a certain linguistic phenomenon in legal documents.
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