Begging the question
You will often hear people in tribunal saying ‘That begs the question’. Almost all of them are misusing the phrase.
‘Begging the question’ is a term from philosophy, specifically logic, that has a technical meaning. It means to advance an argument in which the conclusion is already contained within the premises.
This is easier to see in an example:
Only thieves steal things.
I am not a thief.
Therefore I didn’t steal that money.
Here I am trying to prove that I did not steal some money. But if you examine my statement ‘I am not a thief’ it means ‘I am not a person who has stolen things in the past’. It assumes the truth of the conclusion I am trying to prove. It begs the question.
The vast majority of people do not use it in this sense, but to mean ‘That leaves an important question unanswered’. For example: ‘That begs the question; why were you in the vault with a bag of money?’
Unfortunately, this is a no-win situation. If you use the phrase correctly, most people (including lawyers and judges) will not understand you properly. If you use it incorrectly, you may cause a wince if somebody does know the correct definition. At worse, some people will think you mean one thing and some will think you mean another.
Therefore, if you want to say that your opponent’s propositions presume his conclusion, say ‘His argument is circular’. If you want to say that your opponent has left important questions unanswered, say ‘He leaves important questions unanswered’.
There is a related problem with “that’s a leading question”.
For lawyers, a leading question is a question that steers a witness to give a particular answer. The usual rule is that you shouldn’t ask leading questions of your own witness except on factual issues that are not in dispute.
However, non-lawyers often say “that’s a leading question” when they mean something like, “that’s a very important question and it hasn’t yet been satisfactorily answered”.
If you are going to talk about leading questions in the Tribunal, make sure that you are using the expression in the technical, legal sense, or you’ll cause confusion.
Both of these are examples of a general rule:
Don’t use a technical word unless you mean it technically
The general rule is a good one. The trap, however, is that what seems to be an ordinary English word or phrase may turn out to have a technical meaning.
There’s a useful glossary, accessible through the resources section of this website. It would be a good idea for anyone who is appearing in Tribunal to read through the contents of the glossary, before they do their first hearing.
I find that ‘unfair dismissal’ causes particular problems. It looks perfectly straightforward, but both ‘unfair’ and ‘dismissal’ have deeply technical meanings. People assume they know what it means, only to get ambushed by the technicalities.
Perhaps it should be replaced with ‘iniustus diffinio’, which would at least make it clear there were hidden dragons.