European Consumer Access to Justice Revisited

"Teaching someone a foreign language and teaching a child to speak require the ability to explain terminology in a plain, simple and intelligible language. Writing a law book, in the present case a book about access to justice in the context of European consumer law, cannot, of course, be directly compared to teaching a language. Nevertheless, the situation more or less resembles language teaching, especially if the book is to be understood not only by legal scholars specialising in the particular fi eld at hand, but by a broader audience. Even if one wanted to address only the fi rst group, writing a book on the somewhat vague term 'access to justice' would clearly benefi t from a precise defi nition. Th e problem with this, however, is that there is not just one legitimate defi nition of access to justice. While it can be assumed that the meaning of 'access' is easy to understand, the term 'justice' can be interpreted in diff erent ways; it has been a prominent object of academic writing, not only in legal academia and in recent times, but also in various other fi elds and for hundreds of years, as will be seen in the course of this book"--