NON-SPEECH TOOLS OF LEGAL REGULATION

Abstract

The properties of the text as a means of communication in norm-making and law enforcement are considered. Certain informative acts are not verbal behavior, but acquire legal significance due to the indication in the legislation, the communicative situation and their ability to express intent or a will. Means that are neither oral or written text, nor any other speech act: visual or sound signals, (non-textual) symbols, gestures, symbols, coloring, marking, etc. are in fact a part of legal communication, including legal regulation. The silence is also non-verbal act. In a legal communication it manifests itself as irregularity – due to the complete absence of a norm or its formulation in a deliberately undefined way – is a legally significant silence of a legislator. Silence can express (presume) consent (in an administrative procedure), permission (within the general permissive principle) or prohibition (in the case of a special legal approach). The issue of the possibility of full or partial consolidation of a legal norm by non-textual means was raised. It is noted that legal certainty, as a criterion of the quality of legislation in non-textual legal regulation, is provided by the specification of the situation (its narrowing, which corresponds to the function of the «hypothesis» of the legal norm and the «context» in speech) of the use of non-speech means, their previous equal assimilation by the participants of legally significant communication. In the absence of consensus, the advantages of such means - instant perception, intuitive comprehensibility – are lost, the corresponding «visual» or «sonorous» norm becomes legally uncertain. It is noted that non-language means are used within the framework of custom. The prospects for expanding the subject of linguistic expertise are outlined and it is noted that the interpretation of non-verbal means of legal communication can be entrusted, in particular in civil proceedings, to a legal expert.