Maria Theresa and the Law
Many years ago, I was attending a university course about legal aspects for computer scientists. It was a very basic course and in order to make the topic digestible more easily for us students, the lecturer was providing some anecdotes. As the course was provided by an Austrian university, some of the examples referred to the Habsburgans and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The lecturer told us that before a law could pass, a member of the common people had to read the law text and explain it in his own words. Only if that was possible and purpose of the law could be reflected, a law could become active and valid.
The idea behind this was to ensure that the population, which received only basic education back in the days of Maria Theresa, could understand the meaning and implications of the law. This person had a specific name, if I remember correctly, it was Hungarian for "simple person" or even "stupid person". Does anyone know the term for this person?