A very confusing sentence...

Question

"that reservation, being an essential part of the Declaration of Acceptance, cannot be separated from it so as to remove from the Declaration the vitiating element of inconsistnecy with the Statute and of the absence of a legal obligation."

I am so confused is the highlighted 'of the absence of a legal obligation' qualifying 'the vitiating element'? How should I understand it?

Clive · Accepted Answer

Hi,

"that reservation, being an essential part of the Declaration of Acceptance, cannot be separated from it so as to remove from the Declaration the vitiating element of inconsistnecy with the Statute and of the absence of a legal obligation."

I am so confused is the highlighted 'of the absence of a legal obligation' qualifying 'the vitiating element'? How should I understand it?

I'm not a lawyer. In terms of grammar, this is how I interpret the part you are asking about.

ie the vitiating element of . . . (this) . . . and of . . . (this) . . .

This means that the vitiating element has two parts.

1. inconsistency with the Statute

2. the absence of a legal obligation

My lay interpretation of this is that the declaration will be invalid (vitiated) if it is inconsistent with the relevant statute, and also if it does not impose any legal obligation.

I'm ging to move this query to the 'Legal English' part of the Forum, where you may get comments from people with a legal background.

Best wishes, Clive

Best wishes, Clive

Avangi · Answer

I read it with "so as to remove" being essential.

If one wishes to to separate "that reservation" for the purpose of removing the two vitiating elements, one cannot.

I don't believe the reason why one cannot is stated, although the implication may be that to do so would render the declaration invalid.

Especially since "element" is singular, it doesn't seem to mean that (this) is a vitiating element and (this) is a vitiating element. I rather take it to mean that we might seek to remove the vitiating element (singular) from (this) and from (this).

- A.

Clive · Answer

Hi,

You'd think legal people would write clear sentences.

But then again, that's why they can charge huge fees for subsequent interpretations.

Clive

Avangi · Answer

That's a big 10-4, Clive.

(I wrote the following addendum before I saw your latest.)

Without prior context it seems circular. With the presence of the vitiating element, the declaration is invalid anyway, right??

And if we "separate" "that reservation," in order to remove the vitiating element, we "may" invalidate the declaration. (But of course that's only speculation. We're not told why we can't "separate" the reservation.)

What we need is/are a couple sentences of prior context.

A very confusing sentence...

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