Administrative law: challenging an authority

The German for taking the state to court is den Rechtsweg beschreiten, and both halves of the phrase are worth a second look. Beschreiten is a verb the language keeps almost entirely for fixed and rather solemn company: one beschreitet neue Wege or den Rechtsweg, and hardly ever anything as literal as a footpath. The picture behind it is a road that exists before anyone sets foot on it. The law lays out der Rechtsweg, and the citizen decides whether to walk it. The same road turns up in the small print of every prize draw, where der Rechtsweg ist ausgeschlossen announces that the result cannot be taken to court. Against an authority the road usually begins before any judge is involved, with das Vorverfahren, in which the authority is asked to think again, and only then does it reach the bench.