Legislative discourse. Legal text. Civil Code. Criminal Code. General character. Passive voice. Impersonal form. Passive construction.

L´article se propose de montrer le rôle des constructions a valeur passive dans les textes de loi. Leur fréquence élevée est a voir surtout dans la nécessité d´exprimer le caractere général et impersonnel de ce type de texte, ce qui se manifeste également par l´emploi des constructions passives inachevées. A côté de la voix passive, l´article souligne aussi d´autres constructions a valeur passive et d´autres moyens linguistiques susceptibles de traduire l´idée passive.

The article deals with the function of the passive voice and passive constructions in legislative texts. The necessity to emphasize the impersonal character of this type of texts, which is manifested by common omissions of the agent apart from other things, is regarded as the main reason of its frequent use. Besides the passive voice, the article also refers to other possibilities of expressing the passive character as are in particular the impersonal constructions with the reflexive pronoun ?se? and, to a certain extent, with the pronoun ?on?, but also some adjectives. A high frequency of the passive voice and of other passive constructions is noticeable in Czech as well as in French and Italian legislative texts.