Looking at the reaction to the court dress story in The Volokh Conspiracy, I remembered the court dress I find most ridiculous of all – that of the Federal Constitutional Court in Germany. It looks to me as if it was designed in the 1960s – I haven’t checked; the headgear somehow reminds me of the spaceship in 2001.
Eugene Volokh then showed the picture (I had hesitated to show a picture from Der Spiegel), and he has another of the Supreme Court of Canada, added to the same entry.

The Institute of Global Law at University College (news page here) seems to be the second most useful British university website for German law (after the German Law Archive, partly run by the same people), I have had the impression. I was reminded when I was researching Basil Markesinis.

Since this weblog is about legal translation, I hope it doesn’t seem rude to comment on one of the translations on the site. Time doesn’t allow more. I do not intend to discuss bad translations and useless books here – it would be a waste of space. These translations are good and convey the original German. The Bundesverfassungsgericht ones are rather heavy going, but that seems to be the effect of the original judgments.

Just by way of example, I am looking at the translation of the Road Traffic Act, (Straßenverkehrsgesetz: the sections relating to damages), which I imagine is not one of the newest. It seems to be dated 1978, judging from the URL. Unfortunately the header does not give the date but merely ‘as amended’. The translator’s name is not given, so it can’t influence me.

This seems to be U.S. English, but written by a German: the use of § is no problem in the U.S., where it is also used for sections, except at the beginning of a sentence. The Germans call it a Paragraph, but English speakers call it a section symbol. In Britain it is more usual to translate German legislation as ‘Section 7 subsection 1’, or ‘Section 7 (1)’. I wouldn’t really mind the § symbol in British English, but it is said not to be recognized in general use. – Other evidence of U.S. origin: kilometers, para. (instead of subsection).

I think it’s also U.S. lawyers’ usage to write ‘analogous’ or ‘by way of analogy’ where the British would write ‘mutatis mutandis’ (§ 13 (2)). I quite like ‘analogous’, would prefer ‘by analogy’ to ‘by way of analogy’ (‘By way of analogy, let me tell you a story…’) and am less happy with ‘accordingly’ (§ 7 (3), sentence no longer in the current StVG, and elsewhere (§ 18 (2): ‘findet entsprechende Anwendung’). I think ‘accordingly’ is translatorese but am willing to accept correction.

Then again, ‘contributory negligence’ sounds more British, since I think in the U.S.A. it has retained its common-law all-or-nothing meaning, and perhaps ‘comparative negligence’ would be used here.

It would seem more natural in English to use ‘shall’ rather than the present tense (e.g. § 7 (1) ‘is obliged to compensate’).

I wonder what the original of § 7 (2) was – was it ‘höhere Gewalt’? I only have the 1999 amendment of the Act here. It has a very long paragraph which is not quite the definition of force majeure.

§7 (3) The owner / keeper remains liable if the use of the motor vehicle was ‘facilitated’ by his negligence – should be ‘made possible’, not ‘made easier’.

In § 9, I would prefer the negligence of one person to be treated as ‘equal to’ the negligence of the other, rather than ‘equivalent’, which I find unclear at a first reading.

I think this is enough to give a general idea to anyone reading this of the nature of legal translation. It is rare to translate a complete statute, and that should really be left to teams with time and financial support for thorough research, but bits of statutes often need translating.

At all events, this is a clearly written translation with the appropriate level of language – not too formal and not too informal, with largely appropriate terminology.
One final point: I noticed the use of the word ‘laches’ in the title of §15. That really seems unnecessary. Since laches is a term in equity, I would be disinclined to use it in translation at all, and even if its meaning were wider, it is so unfamiliar to the person on the Clapham omnibus (quote from a card at the Hyatt Regency: ‘Have a great day – Your bellperson’) that I would ban it as too far from plain English. (I discovered in Jersey City that Americans pronounce it ‘latches’, whereas the British pronunciation is ‘layches’ – Garner confirms in A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage, ISBN 0 19 507769 5) – the amazon.com link allows you to see some pages (‘Look inside’).

The Institute of Global Law at University College (news page here) seems to be the second most useful British university website for German law (after the German Law Archive, partly run by the same people), I have had the impression. I was reminded when I was researching Basil Markesinis.

Since this weblog is about legal translation, I hope it doesn’t seem rude to comment on one of the translations on the site. Time doesn’t allow more. I do not intend to discuss bad translations and useless books here – it would be a waste of space. These translations are good and convey the original German. The Bundesverfassungsgericht ones are rather heavy going, but that seems to be the effect of the original judgments.

Just by way of example, I am looking at the translation of the Road Traffic Act, (Straßenverkehrsgesetz: the sections relating to damages), which I imagine is not one of the newest. It seems to be dated 1978, judging from the URL. Unfortunately the header does not give the date but merely ‘as amended’. The translator’s name is not given, so it can’t influence me.

This seems to be U.S. English, but written by a German: the use of § is no problem in the U.S., where it is also used for sections, except at the beginning of a sentence. The Germans call it a Paragraph, but English speakers call it a section symbol. In Britain it is more usual to translate German legislation as ‘Section 7 subsection 1’, or ‘Section 7 (1)’. I wouldn’t really mind the § symbol in British English, but it is said not to be recognized in general use. – Other evidence of U.S. origin: kilometers, para. (instead of subsection).

I think it’s also U.S. lawyers’ usage to write ‘analogous’ or ‘by way of analogy’ where the British would write ‘mutatis mutandis’ (§ 13 (2)). I quite like ‘analogous’, would prefer ‘by analogy’ to ‘by way of analogy’ (‘By way of analogy, let me tell you a story…’) and am less happy with ‘accordingly’ (§ 7 (3), sentence no longer in the current StVG, and elsewhere (§ 18 (2): ‘findet entsprechende Anwendung’). I think ‘accordingly’ is translatorese but am willing to accept correction.

Then again, ‘contributory negligence’ sounds more British, since I think in the U.S.A. it has retained its common-law all-or-nothing meaning, and perhaps ‘comparative negligence’ would be used here.

It would seem more natural in English to use ‘shall’ rather than the present tense (e.g. § 7 (1) ‘is obliged to compensate’).

I wonder what the original of § 7 (2) was – was it ‘höhere Gewalt’? I only have the 1999 amendment of the Act here. It has a very long paragraph which is not quite the definition of force majeure.

§7 (3) The owner / keeper remains liable if the use of the motor vehicle was ‘facilitated’ by his negligence – should be ‘made possible’, not ‘made easier’.

In § 9, I would prefer the negligence of one person to be treated as ‘equal to’ the negligence of the other, rather than ‘equivalent’, which I find unclear at a first reading.

I think this is enough to give a general idea to anyone reading this of the nature of legal translation. It is rare to translate a complete statute, and that should really be left to teams with time and financial support for thorough research, but bits of statutes often need translating.

At all events, this is a clearly written translation with the appropriate level of language – not too formal and not too informal, with largely appropriate terminology.
One final point: I noticed the use of the word ‘laches’ in the title of §15. That really seems unnecessary. Since laches is a term in equity, I would be disinclined to use it in translation at all, and even if its meaning were wider, it is so unfamiliar to the person on the Clapham omnibus (quote from a card at the Hyatt Regency: ‘Have a great day – Your bellperson’) that I would ban it as too far from plain English. (I discovered in Jersey City that Americans pronounce it ‘latches’, whereas the British pronunciation is ‘layches’ – Garner confirms in A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage, ISBN 0 19 507769 5) – the amazon.com link allows you to see some pages (‘Look inside’).

Via Jurist’s Paper Chase, I found that a survey is being made to find out whether judges should dress more informally. A consultation paper has just been issued, but before that, a public opinion poll was held. People were shown three pictures of options for court dress, one of them (A) always being current dress. The pictures are bizarre: three each of a (female, Asian? the pictures are dark) barrister, a male criminal judge and a female criminal judge (is their dress not unisex?) and a civil judge, and two of a (black) court clerk. The civil judge is photographed at three distances, so he looks much bigger in the present dress than in the second of the possible dresses. Would this influence voters? In all cases, the wigs are fairly similar to the hair the person already has. I’m guessing that one criminal judge, the man, was a High Court judge, the woman a district judge, and the civil judge was a district judge.

I read in Blogcritics, who had it from Yahoo news, that a man has been arrested in ‘the southern German town of Fuerth’ (which is where I live) – 8 computers were taken from the house of a 25-year-old ‘computer student’ for ‘using a clone of a Napster file-sharing server to distribute over a million MP3 music files daily to some 3,000 individual users over a period of weeks’.
Incidentally, I hesitate to anglicize Fürth to Fuerth – it seems to me that the UE = Ü practice is a German one. After all, we write Zurich not Zuerich (well, I know that doesn’t prove anything.
The Fuerther Nachrichten is ignorant. It does have an article on local hunters opposing the reform of the hunting law, a subject I was thinking of writing about as a German peculiarity: ‘Die Naturschützer hatten unter anderem gefordert, die Zahl der jagdbaren Tiere auf Rotwild, Damhirsch, Sikahirsch, Reh, Gemse, Mufflon und Wildschwein einzuschränken und die Abschusspläne für so genanntes Schalenwild – dazu zählen alle Huftiere – abzuschaffen. „Diese Forderung dient erkennbar dem Zweck, aus Gründen der Waldwirtschaft das Triebe und Knospen verbeißende Rehwild auszurotten“, so Kretsch.’
(I must find a simple method of marking quotes).
The Nordbayern Infonet is also silent. Yahoo says the report came from Reuters in Berlin. All these papers say is that the football team may move up if it does well against Cologne, and that there is a new technology for cinema advertising being introduced, digital preparation (Wolf Werbung Fürth became RoWo).

I read in Blogcritics, who had it from Yahoo news, that a man has been arrested in ‘the southern German town of Fuerth’ (which is where I live) – 8 computers were taken from the house of a 25-year-old ‘computer student’ for ‘using a clone of a Napster file-sharing server to distribute over a million MP3 music files daily to some 3,000 individual users over a period of weeks’.
Incidentally, I hesitate to anglicize Fürth to Fuerth – it seems to me that the UE = Ü practice is a German one. After all, we write Zurich not Zuerich (well, I know that doesn’t prove anything.
The Fuerther Nachrichten is ignorant. It does have an article on local hunters opposing the reform of the hunting law, a subject I was thinking of writing about as a German peculiarity: ‘Die Naturschützer hatten unter anderem gefordert, die Zahl der jagdbaren Tiere auf Rotwild, Damhirsch, Sikahirsch, Reh, Gemse, Mufflon und Wildschwein einzuschränken und die Abschusspläne für so genanntes Schalenwild – dazu zählen alle Huftiere – abzuschaffen. „Diese Forderung dient erkennbar dem Zweck, aus Gründen der Waldwirtschaft das Triebe und Knospen verbeißende Rehwild auszurotten“, so Kretsch.’
(I must find a simple method of marking quotes).
The Nordbayern Infonet is also silent. Yahoo says the report came from Reuters in Berlin. All these papers say is that the football team may move up if it does well against Cologne, and that there is a new technology for cinema advertising being introduced, digital preparation (Wolf Werbung Fürth became RoWo).