Tag der offenen Tür bei der Justiz Nürnberg am 16. Juli 2003
Open day at the courts of justice in Nüremberg on 16 July 2003

Programme is on the courts’ website. All in German (the event as well as the description of it).

At higher levels on that site you can find a glossary of law terms, details of when you can visit the courtroom where the War Crimes Trials were held, details of past and current cases and more. I can’t get proper links – I have a feeling they use frames.

It is Woche der Justiz – Week of the Courts – in Bavaria next week (14 – 18 July 2003).

This is the third time it’s been held, I think. I went to the first. A talk by someone from the US Army on differences in U.S. and German criminal trials was good (it’s on this year’s programme too). Another talk, by a German lawyer, had been wrongly advertised in the paper and so we got the wrong one. As I recall it was about the law of succession. It was very elementary. The discussion period was monopolized by people apparently trying to get legal advice on current problems with other family members. It was interesting to sit in a van used for transporting prisoners. I got some free commentaries to statutes that were a couple of years old, that the library was throwing out.
(You can buy such Dubletten – double copies, actually usually old copies – from the Bundesgerichtshof – click on Bibliothek, Dublettenangebote, Aktuelle Angebote – haven’t compared their prices with e-bay).

The whole programme to print out is here.

Derek Thornton, not in his blog, but on FLEFO, mentioned an article of 9 July in the Trinidad Express: ‘Mute pleads guilty to murder’ by mistake.

bq. CONFUSION between two different types of sign language yesterday led to a mute man pleading guilty to murder.
Were it not for the quick intervention of defence attorney Ulric Skerritt, who brought the misunderstanding to Justice Melville Baird’s attention, Bharath Mansingh could have been sentenced to death.

The defendant knew ASL but the interpreter used Signed English.

It was only very recently that I read about the difference between ASL – American Sign Language – and Signed English. The former has its own grammar, whereas the latter follows the structure of English. But I can’t remember where I read this. Whoever wrote it also said that ASL was based on the sign language used by Trappist monks. I didn’t realize the idea of monks being silent was not to use their vocal chords – I thought it meant you should not communicate with other people at certain times.

Some interesting notes in the summary of a course given by Peter L. Patrick at Essex University: Introduction to the Sociolinguistics of Sign Languages.

At the library of Gallaudet University, there is a list of 114 sign languages.

Ruth Morris refers me to the Iqbal Begum case (thanks, Ruth!), not a sign language one, which is mentioned inter alia in a booklet on interpreting for the public services, produced by the Regional Language Network Northwest (in Britain).

Derek Thornton, not in his blog, but on FLEFO, mentioned an article of 9 July in the Trinidad Express: ‘Mute pleads guilty to murder’ by mistake.

bq. CONFUSION between two different types of sign language yesterday led to a mute man pleading guilty to murder.
Were it not for the quick intervention of defence attorney Ulric Skerritt, who brought the misunderstanding to Justice Melville Baird’s attention, Bharath Mansingh could have been sentenced to death.

The defendant knew ASL but the interpreter used Signed English.

It was only very recently that I read about the difference between ASL – American Sign Language – and Signed English. The former has its own grammar, whereas the latter follows the structure of English. But I can’t remember where I read this. Whoever wrote it also said that ASL was based on the sign language used by Trappist monks. I didn’t realize the idea of monks being silent was not to use their vocal chords – I thought it meant you should not communicate with other people at certain times.

Some interesting notes in the summary of a course given by Peter L. Patrick at Essex University: Introduction to the Sociolinguistics of Sign Languages.

At the library of Gallaudet University, there is a list of 114 sign languages.

Ruth Morris refers me to the Iqbal Begum case (thanks, Ruth!), not a sign language one, which is mentioned inter alia in a booklet on interpreting for the public services, produced by the Regional Language Network Northwest (in Britain).

I have only seen it for London, Blogalization (with links) says it started in NYC and Washington DC: bloggers in Hamburg mapped onto the transport system.

There are 30 blogs on the plan now – all Hamburg bloggers should add themselves.

I have only seen it for London, Blogalization (with links) says it started in NYC and Washington DC: bloggers in Hamburg mapped onto the transport system.

There are 30 blogs on the plan now – all Hamburg bloggers should add themselves.

Further to the last entry – to which there were a couple of comments – I forgot to mention (again) that the Bavarian statute governing sworn translators and interpreters is online in its up-to-date version in Saxony (in German).

The Bayerisches Dolmetschergesetz can stand for the arrangements in the other 15 Länder too – I don’t think they all have their own statute, some rely on a pre-WWII Reich statute. It may answer the question as to what would be sanctionable and what the sanction would be.

Full name of the statute:
Gesetz über die öffentliche Bestellung und allgemeine Beeidigung von Dolmetschern und Übersetzern.
It’s dated 1981 but was revised in 2000.

The new version envisages the possibility of swearing translators who do not either live or have their business in Bavaria. (I think this has to do with equal treatment throughout the EU – other countries are probably less restrictive than Germany). Continue reading →