May 19, 2008 at 10:19PM On the incomprehensibility of the Lisbon Treaty
I wrote a piece for Irish Election on the strawman argument that the the Lisbon Treaty is unreadable. I thought I’d reproduce it here:
I’m one of those people who hasn’t quite decided which way they’re going to vote on in the referendum. This is because I haven’t got around to reading all of the text I’m voting on yet. However, there’s one incredibly stupid argument the no camp is bandying about right now. It’s an argument that does an incredible amount of disservice to everybody. That argument is:
The Lisbon Treaty is an incomprehensible document, which is NOT readable in a linear way. It was NOT meant to be read by anyone, just to be blindly accepted. It is against basic common sense and against the sense of responsibility to sign any treaty or contract without fully knowing its contents and understanding its consequences.
So writes howardh (who I’m presuming is the Howard Holby who wrote this Indymedia article, which reads like he thinks the EU is one big conspiracy) of the The Lisbon Treaty Blog. I’ve heard this thrown about a lot, and I have to dispel it. Here’s an example he gives:
GENERAL PROVISIONS
64] Article 61 shall be replaced by the following Chapter 1 and Articles 61 to 61 I. Article 61 shall also replace the current Article 29 of the Treaty on European Union, Article 61 D shall replace Article 36 thereof, Article 61 E shall replace Article 64(1) of the Treaty establishing the European Community and the current Article 33 of the Treaty on European Union,
Yup, completely unreadable to the average person. Frankly, I can see how people would have difficultly reading this. However, to assume that this is what you’re meant to read is to confuse the map with the territory.
I’m a software developer, and the text of the Lisbon Treaty is what we call a diff. Diffs are useful and describe in succinct terms the changes between two different version of the same piece of software. It’s not surprising that the legal profession and the software development profession both came up with the same idea: we both deal with large reams of text, we both need to be able to trace the change in those reams of text, and need to be able to distribute those change in a manner that shows the changes explicitly. However, the diffs themselves are rarely read in isolation. So it is with the Treaty.
When you’re voting on the Lisbon Treaty, you’re voting on a whole bunch of changes to existing treaties to consolidate them into a single body of law: if you want to know what you’re really voting for, it’s this consolidated body of law you need to read. And guess what, there have been copies of the consolidated treaties floating around for ages.
For instance, if you type “lisbon treaty consolidated” into Google, you get Peadar O Broin’s consolidated text, which has been around since January 16th of this year. Alternatively, Libertas, if you’re suspicious that O Broin might have some pro-treaty bias, also have an excellent consolidated text with annotations. Read and download one or the other. If you want a good overview, head to the Wikipedia page on the treaty, but don’t forget to read the treaty text too.
Contrary what some in the No camp say, the consolidated treaties, though running into over 300 pages in total, is actually pretty clear. Best as I can tell, there’s no great, if any, effort at obfuscation. So please, ignore the scaremongering from both the Yes and No camps, read the consolidated treaty text, and make your own mind up.
And if anybody brings up the incomprehensibility argument, print out the consolidated treaty and whack them across the back of the head with it. You’ll be doing them and the country a service.