Here are some questions that came up at the seminar in Frankfurt on Saturday:

Schwere der Schuld
Have you a suggestion for translating Schwere der Schuld?

After tracing this term in § 153a of the Code of Criminal Procedure, I am happy with the translation used by the English translation of the StPO at the German Law Archive, degree of culpability, which supports one of the suggestions I made. It was objected that Schwere implies gravity or severity, but I think degree implies that.

However, it’s not the degree I have problems with, it’s the culpability. Degree of guilt sounds wrong, as you are either guilty or not. Culpability is close in meaning to guilt. The section quoted was actually § 57a of the Criminal Code, and that is translated on the German Law Archive site as the particular gravity of the convicted person’s guilt, which seems odd to me. Schuld is difficult to translate anyway.
You can talk about the gravity or seriousness of an offence, of course.
It was put to me that I might jog my mind if I thought of English texts on the same topic. It seems to me, though, that this degree of culpability is not relevant in considering whether to release an English person on parole. A Google search on parole factors release gets texts. Perhaps this is a factor in original sentencing, though. Then one thinks of aggravating and mitigating factors.

I looked at Tröndle/Fischer (commentary on the Criminal Code – forgot to mention the value of commentaries), which says something about the elements of murder being relevant in § 57a – and the elements of German murder are rather extreme.

I have not found anything I like better than degree of culpability.

Legalitätsprinzip / Opportunitätsprinzip
It was suggested that merely rendering these as legality principle and opportunity principle would not be widely understood. I actually read those terms in English in a book on comparative criminal justice last week, but I think legality principle is particularly suspect, because it has more than one meaning.

Suggestions were mandatory prosecution and explicit prosecutorial discretion, and also prosecution ex officio. I suppose in context mandatory prosecution is OK, but it does still sound to me as if the public prosecutor were obliged to prosecute all the world.

I see Romain has principle of mandatory / discretionary prosecution. The term prosecutorial discretion I found on the website of the International Criminal Justice Review, which also mentioned compulsory prosecution (see article on Prosecutorial Discretion and Plea Bargaining in the United States, France, Germany, and Italy: A Comparative Perspective by Yue Ma).

The Euro Justice website has this:

bq. This rule of mandatory prosecution (Legalitätsprinzip) has however been limited or even eroded by a growing number of exceptions. Today, prosecution is in effect mandatory only with respect to most felonies (Verbrechen), i.e., offences with a statutory minimum of one year imprisonment (cf. Sect. 12 subs. 1 CC). Even for specified felonies directed against the interests of the state, e.g., high treason or participation in a terrorist organisation (Sects. 153d, 153e CCP), the Federal prosecutor can dismiss the case, if there exists a countervailing public interest, or if the offender has subsequently helped to combat the danger for the state created by the offence.

(By the way, this site translates 5 Tagessätze as 5 day fines).

And the German Law Journal uses compulsory prosecution in Police Cautions and the Vanishing Differences between Legality and Discretion in European Criminal Justice Systems, by Michael Jasch.

The nearest equivalent to Duden for the German language or the Chicago Style Guide for the USA used to be Hart’s Rules (first published in 1893). It was replaced by the more longwinded Oxford Style Guide. But in September 2005 the publisher decided to go back to Hart’s Rules. At amazon.de (and UK and USA) you can look inside the book.

The set of books you might use consists of New Hart’s Rules, New Oxford Spelling Dictionary (useful for word divisions) and New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors. They are also sold as a set, Writer’s Reference Pack.

The recommendations in these books are those followed by Oxford University Press, rather than those followed by the majority of publications. But apart from the use of -ize instead of -ise in many words and the serial comma (both of which I like), the recommendations are fairly standard.

Another superb book is Copy-Editing, by Judith Butcher.

[Part entry about Wikipedia user page removed as it may have been a troll and I haven’t got time to research it]

On a related tack, you can now get a WordPress plug-in to translate your blog into numerous languages.
(Thanks to Trevor ap S.)

(Via Handakte WebLAWg)

The Neue Zürcher Zeitung has an article today (Borer gegen Burda und Bertelsmann) on the failure of the former Swiss ambassador to Germany and his American wife to obtain damages against German magazines in a US court. Borer’s behaviour as ambassador was not regarded as appropriate in some Swiss quarters, and when he was the victim of a fabricated claim that he had had an affair with a topless model, his career came to an end. The suit was rejected because it had insufficient connections to Texas and Texas law, and the appeal was unsuccessful. This was reported in July 2005 in the US, but it’s interesting to see it from the Swiss angle.

On Borer and Shawne Fielding-Borer, a Time article, Boring, He’s Not (‘Flamboyant and Swiss are adjectives not often found in close proximity to each other…’)

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit judgment (where we learn, inter alia, that only 70 copies of Bunte and sixty of Stern make it to Texas).

German report of July 2005, including translation of headnotes of case (‘Wie ein Vertreter der „Kanzlei Professor Schweizer“ sagte, sind die beiden Urteile weit über den Einzellfall hinaus für alle Medien von großer Bedeutung’).

The result might have been different if the parties had genuinely lived in Texas. The NZZ writes:

bq. US-Gerichte fühlen sich offensichtlich nicht schon dann berufen, über ausländische Presseberichte zu Affären und angeblichen Affären zu richten, wenn eine Betroffene im Gerichtsstaat aufwuchs und dort Misswahlen gewann.

bq. Es ist davon auszugehen, dass künftige Opfer missliebiger Presseberichte, die sich von den Vorzügen des US-Gerichtssystems angezogen fühlen, diese Entscheide sorgfältig studieren und Sachverhalt und Argumentation darauf einstellen werden. Medienunternehmen sollten sich darum auch künftig sorgfältig mit der «Anziehungskraft» von US-Gerichten auseinandersetzen.

Authors:

bq. Dr. Stefan Liniger ist Rechtsanwalt bei Bär & Karrer, Zürich, Dr. Stephan Wilske ist Rechtsanwalt bei Gleiss Lutz, Stuttgart.

Deutsche Welle has an article in English on German literary translators, with a picture of Harry Rowohlt in his Lindenstraße role.

The DenverChannel, via lawblog:

bq. TACOMA, Wash. — A judge overseeing a manslaughter case embarrassed prosecutors and upset the victim’s family when she called for a Super Bowl cheer for the Seattle Seahawks before the start of the sentencing hearing.
As Judge Beverly G. Grant took the bench Friday, she asked everyone in court to say “Go Seahawks.” Dissatisfied with the low volume of the response, she told them to try again.

After this, she heard statements and sentenced the defendant to thirteen-and-a-half years’ imprisonment.