I can’t help wondering which Cologne or Brussels bar their “lawyers” write the stuff in.
There are so many areas which are internally inconsistent, or are ambiguous.
The 8.33 business is one example – whether all radios carried have to be 8.33 even if you carry the number of 8.33 radios required, is one example.
A bizzare scenario would be somebody with a GNS480 (25kHz), a GNS530 (8.33) and a KX165A/8.33 (8.33) who thus has two 8.33 radios which meets the strictest known or imagined requirement (Germany and its “IFR Certificate”) yet requires the GNS480 to be ripped out as the reg appears currently drafted. This has led to some people contacting the UK CAA for guidance and they say it is OK; you don’t need to rip out 25k radios if you meet the 8.33 requirement. But will Germans (etc etc) get the same interpretation from their CAA? Some European CAA quite obviously can’t read the EASA regs in the first place (look at how few signed up to the original derogation – I don’t think they understood what it was about).
I have had input from barristers which is that whereas UK law goes through various processes to remove obvious errors and such, European law often doesn’t get that, and EASA regs in particular seem to pass to EU law without being looked at by anyone competent in legal language, never mind anyone with aviation knowledge which knows where the holes will be (a bit like an experienced programmer is usually a good software tester because he knows where the usual skeletons are going to be buried).
I doubt whether any of the EU aviation law which the UK is now subject to via its EU membership has yet been tested in any UK court at any level whatsoever, and when it happens it is going to be a bit of a laugh. I doubt it is going to happen for a long time because the UK CAA is reluctant to prosecute anybody and especially so where it might lose and end up with unwelcome case law. But it may happen elsewhere…
Some of it has to do with language and translation problems.
I saw one place EASA was looking for people with aviation expirience to help with translations because of this.
Best thing would be to create all the laws in one language and then have that as the only legal language and have everything else as non legal translations (as if that will ever happen…).
Could be English with a twist: 
The European Commission
The European Commission has announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU, rather than German, which was the other contender. Her Majesty’s Government conceded that English spelling had room for improvement and has therefore accepted a five-year phasing in of “Euro-English”.
In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will make sivil servants jump for joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of the “k”, Which should klear up some konfusion and allow one key less on keyboards.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”, making words like “fotograf” 20% shorter.
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent “e” is disgrasful.
By the fourth yer, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”.
During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and everivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. ZE DREM VIL FINALI COM TRU!
Herr Schmidt
Most of Europe don’t take any notice of this stuff so why soud they care. At best its more work for lawyers. Rumour has it that the proposed removal of the “S” from EASA is due to the confusion with the word “Shyster”
A Shyster is a slang word for someone who acts in a disreputable, unethical, or unscrupulous way, especially in the practice of law, politics or business.
I doubt it is going to happen for a long time because the UK CAA is reluctant to prosecute anybody
May explain why the CAA no longer has a Head of Air Regulation Enforcement!
Did they ever? Ian Weston was on the DfT payroll even though nominally inside the CAA.
All EU legislation is ultimately interpreted by the national cours, subject to the points of law which get referred to the European Court. This means that English rule sof jurisprudence and statutory interpretation apply. In recent years the courts have moved away from the literal interpretation to a purposive approach, i.e. an interpretation which is consistent with the purpose behind the rule. That in itself can be difficult when that approach admits of two or more interpretations. When it comes to prosecutions, there is a more stict interpretation and doubt resolved in favour of a defendant.
The EU wider problem is the democratic deficit, meaning that the legislators are too remote from the people they represent. When other courtries are devolving powers to their regions, it is bizzare that in Euroland they cling to the centralist beliefs of 50+ years ago. There is arguably no fix for this other than removing those powers and the decision making back to where they belong.
Ops, zer vas somzing zat vas not speled kvait rait. Vas I zi onli wun to notis zat? Kom?
In the Danish version of EASA-OPS, it is it stated that a qualified person should be at the controls of a helicopter, whenever electricity is applied to the rotor. Obviously because “power” can be used to mean “electricity”, and because the person who translated it from English “power” did not have a clue what it was all about. And neither did the proofreader, apparently.
Perhaps all / some of us here should apply for these translator jobs and then quietly rewrite the regs…….. Subversion, my friends, subversion!
If you work as an SAP consultant for a living and have to struggle with the abysmal quality of translation of SAP products, you soon come to find EASA legal texts to be extremely well-written and translated.
Examples that spring to my mind from the past weeks: A drop-down field labeled “Status”. The input options were “Hamburg, Niedersachsen, Bayern, …….”.
Translating “Clean up of stage definition” as “Definition der Bereinigungsstufe”. I mean, how can this even happen?
SAP = Stops All Progress
I love 8,3333333333333333333333333333333 kHz !!! Sooo clever frequency management.
/Sam
