Rasprave Instituta za Hrvatski Jezik i Jezikoslovlje (Jan 2009)
Basic notions and terms of Croatian bankruptcy law
Abstract
Bankruptcy is an interdisciplinary area where primarily economists and law experts meet, or put more widely, where systems of thoughts and expressions of economists and lawyers blend. Moreover, Wood considers Bankruptcy law to be the ultimate test of whether or not the judiciary fulfils its purpose. Assuming that the idea of the “language of lawyers” is missconceived and that in Croatia there is a language common to all of its citizens, disagreements about key terms in bankruptcy are analyzed. It is necessary to analyze and to clarify these terms, in order to propose a solution and to achieve accord within a vocabulary that will not have to be redefined with every change in the Bankruptcy law. Presently many laws in Croatia are being redesigned according to those of the EU, and because these laws define our society and relations it is important to adequately label basic notions. Croatian Bankruptcy law was copied from the German model in the 1990s, but besides a transfer of legislation, a transfer of culture and language occured as well. Fixation with its German exemplar have led to negative discrimination of the Croatian language, and the importance of using native expressions was overlooked. The paper presents conflict between basic terms and expressions in Croatian bankruptcy procedure, and offers arguments for the usage of principal and founding terms.
