I haven’t finished with the Austrian courts or with the topic of translating courts, but they are rather big and rather difficult to blog.
I have found another treatment of the Austrian courts in English, though, in a Council of Europe book called Judicial Organisation in Europe, ISBN 92 871 4244 0, dated 2000, which apparently cost £19.95.
The Council of Europe (Europarat) is of course not to be confused with the EU European Council (Europäischer Rat). The COE has 45 member states – a map on the website makes it easier to envisage – and 33 judicial systems are described in the book.
Transblawg
Weblog on German-English legal translation, no longer from Fürth
And, as mentioned in my recent ITI Bulletin article, the Council of Europe is also not be confused with the EU Heads of State meeting in Plenary Session.
It’s a pity the title ‘Judicature in Europe’ – for Judicial Org. – never occurred to the trans. dept. of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg I visited last month. A Lord Chancellor should also have been familiar with the UK Judicature Acts that stretch back centuries.
I know our tastes differ. I tend to avoid the word ‘judicature’. For the German Gerichtsverfassungsgesetz I would accept Judicature Act but slightly prefer Constitution of Courts Act (but people get that confused with constitutional law – maybe just Courts Act?) I think a large number of people wouldn’t know what ‘judicature’ means. I don’t think I’ve ever used it in a sentence myself. Garner in fact says Americans would use judiciary where British would use judicature, but I think judiciary is the more common term in Britain now too (e.g. as one of the three branches of power – of course the Lord Chancellor wouldn’t need to give much thought to those).
Points taken. I agree judicature isn’t to everyone’s liking, but neither is the title of the book unequivocal without your explanation of the contents.
I read into the non-standard Eng. term of ‘judicial org.’ at least 5 different meanings:
1. the way judges in Europe organise their paperwork;
2. the different types of judiciary in Europe;
3.the way the courts organise their caseload;
4. the structure of the courts/’judicial systems’ – maybe the likeliest explanation;
5. Based on ELS – the Eng. legal system as a UK core-law study-subject – the legal systems of Europe.
I see what you mean. The Austrian section deals with courts: criminal and civil, a few others, then administrative and constitutional. It also deals with the judges etc. The English of the book is slightly odd in parts. I suspect each country had its own section done for it.
I should have been more alert – or alerter ? – to the source that produced the famous ‘jurisdictional organisms’ on our Inner Temple group visit to Stasbourg almost 10 years ago.
Most of the group back then thought that the Spanish lawyer from the ECHR delivering the incomprehensible talk in Eng. was related to ET.