Common use of Preliminary Remarks Clause in Contracts

Preliminary Remarks. The art of writing legal texts, or légistique as it is called in French, is complex. Many documents explain how a bill or legal texts should be written in order to avoid possible confusion, and the need for recourse to interpretation mechanisms. As the law must be clear and predictable to fulfil its role,1 many techniques are applied during drafting.2 At the level of the European Union, the Joint Practical Guide for persons involved in the drafting of European Union legislation is a very useful kit that states: The drafting of a legal act must be clear, easy to understand and unambiguous; simple and concise, avoiding unnecessary elements; precise, leaving no uncer- tainties in the mind of the reader. This common sense principle is also an expres- sion of general principles of law, such as […] legal certainty, in that it should be possible to foresee how the law will be applied.3