German law journals/Studentische Fachzeitschriften

stud.iur. Martin Malkus links to three German students’ law journals – written by students in the American law review style – available online, one from Hamburg, one from Bremen and one from Freiburg. Some of the articles are in English. (Unfortunately, some – but not all – articles on German law written in English are very hard to read because the author or translator has not found a natural English sentence flow. English versions of academic articles are a real problem, and professional translation is not feasible in view of the amount of research that would sometimes be needed).

Brumas

For obvious reasons, I’ve been trying to remember Brumas’s name. I remember going to see him when he was the most famous animal in Britain. I didn’t realize he was female, though.

Brumas: Brumas was the first Polar Bear to be born at the ZSL London Zoo (1949?). “He” was said to be a male, but it was later confirmed that she was in fact a female. However, the public was not informed of this “sex-change” for several months. Brumas was named after the two keepers, BRUce and SAM. Attendance at the zoo soared as a result of “his” appearance, and in his first year reached 3,000,000—a figure that has yet to be topped.

Fürth fountain to stay in place/Dreiherrenbrunnen bleibt

I was disappointed when I heard this fountain is to be moved a few hundred metres down the road, ostensibly to show it off better and to make this part of the pedestrian zone more beautiful, but really, I suspect, in order to stop the hoi polloi from sitting around it in the middle of the seating belonging to the Italian restaurant and ice-cream parlour. Still, I had to accept it when I saw the place already prepared for it. I then looked forward to getting a picture of it being transported through the air, rather like the scene in Goodbye Lenin.

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But now the Fürther Nachrichten reports that the fountain will have to stay where it is. No-one wants to move it next to the Bratwurst stand, which apparently was intended to go but which has an option of extending its lease for another ten years.

They’ve already spent 8,000 euros on making the water available at the new site, but now they say it may be used in future for another fountain there.

The figures of the three rulers of Fürth are a bit soppy. but it’s quite a good fountain, not in the class of the Centaurenbrunnen in front of the station, but much superior to the monstrosity on the Grüner Markt.

English law and legal language / Buch

Francis Henry, Kevin Pike: English law and legal language: Introduction. Eine Einführung in das englische Rechtssystem und die englische Rechtssprache. Sprachenzentrum der Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, EUR 15. ISBN 3.9810877-0-4 2006

This book is the first of a series to be published for use with law students at Erlangen University, and it’s written by my two successors teaching law at the Institut für Fremdsprachen Fachakademie in Erlangen.

Chapters: The courts, the legal profession, the English legal system, pre-trial criminal procedure, the criminal trial and sentencing, civil procedure, and the United Kingdom constitution.

The book is intended to be used in class, but it has solutions to its exercises. There is a glossary at the back with German translations or explanations of the term. Good layout and diagrams.

I should think this book could be recommended in particular – but not only! – for its brevity. The authors say in the introduction that the materials provide just enough detail to enable students to understand the key concepts, but avoid the depth of most textbooks; and that the emphasis is on understanding and using the key concepts and terminology. They can read more widely later.

There should be a parallel volume for criminal law, but I wasn’t able to get it.

I was told recently that the Introduction was out of print, but I saw two copies in Mencke-Blaesing yesterday, albeit at the wrong end of the shelf.

This entry looks like an answer to the question in the comments to the last-but-one entry, but it isn’t meant that way: it’s just something I’ve been meaning for some time to record. It might be difficult to see this book before buying it, and I think people should look at these books first. If you want to order it, the ISBN is the key. If it really is out of print, I can’t help feeling it will be in print again for the autumn term, so if you order it, ask the bookshop to enquire specifically if it is going to be available again.

Austrian prisons/Österreichische Gefängnisse

I sometimes look at The Glory of Carniola – I’m particularly fond of the photo on the opening page – and now there is a nice entry explaining why there is so much burglary in Austria: it’s because the prisons are so comfortable and well-appointed:

Hell, I live just a few kilometers from the border and I’m seriously considering heading over there this weekend and doing some serious damage. What’s the worst that can happen? Either I come back with a new kick-ass flat-screen television or they send me to some place like the Justice Center Leoben and I get a few months of all-inclusive paid vacation. It’s win-win!

(Via Ingmar at aktenvermerk)

Misconceptions about English law/Falsche Vorstellungen vom englischen Recht

Names and sources omitted to protect the guilty.

1. The legal system in Germany is continental law, and the legal system in Britain is Anglo-Saxon law.

2. Common Law ist Gewohnheitsrecht.

3. Common law is not written law.

4. The United Kingdom has no constitution.

5. Der Engländer ist eher Impressionist. Dies zeigt nicht nur eine unterschiedliche Sprachkultur,sondern lässt Rückschlüsse auf eine andere Denkweise zu, die es einem Deutschen beispielsweise ermöglicht, zwischen Mord und Totschlag zu unterscheiden, während sich der Engländer in seiner unvollendeten, ungenauen Welt zu Hause fühlt.

6. Das Common Law [ist] als das allgemeine Recht im Commonwealth entstanden …, das im Gegensatz zu den regionalen Rechtsordnungen der Mitgliedsländer des Commonwealth den gemeinsamen Grundstock von Rechtsregeln aufstellen sollte, der dazu bestimmt war, das ganze Gebilde zusammenzuhalten.

7. Eine Besonderheit der englischen Rechtssprache ist die Zeit in Verträgen und Gesetzen. Beide werden, obwohl der Leser die Texte im Präsens rezipiert, in der Zukunft verfasst. Der Schreiber englischer juristischer Texte verfasst die Texte von einem Standpunkt aus, von dem alles, was passieren könnte, in der Zukunft liegt, und verwendet somit das Futur.

8. Auffällig und für deutsche Ohren ein wenig befremdlich klingt die bei Entscheidungen des House of Lords in dieser Anschlussformel immer noch benutzte Anredeform „my noble and learned friend Lord …“. Dass es sich dabei nicht allein um eine zu bloßer Konvention erstarrte Höflichkeitsfloskel handelt, sondern um einen Ausdruck der tatsächlichen Wertschätzung des Fachkollegen, bezeugt der ganz generell festzustellende respektvolle Umgangston.

April Fool’s Day/April, April!

Numerous blogs, mailing lists and newspapers are indulging in rather obvious April Fool’s Day items. Here’s the Urban Word of the Day:

I pity the fool
In Mr. T-glish, a rhetoric comment equivalent to the English “I’d best not find out who it was.”
I pity the fool who scratched my car.

That’s just a genuine term chosen for the day. But somehow I know that the Nuremberg pets’ home is not looking for a family to take the polar bear cub Knut – let’s face it, unlike Fürth, Nuremberg was never part of Prussia.

However, the announcement that E-Bay wants to buy the ProZ website appeared on March 31st, although I’m not sure where. As a translator in Canada says under the ProZ entry: Wow! What a news – i am speachless…

And I suspect that the story at RollOnFriday about a lawyer who failed to proofread his profile properly is also true.

(Thanks to Chris)

LATER NOTE: There was a fairly complex report near the end of Gardeners’ Question Time (can be listened to online all week) on government proposals to have an MOT test for petrol-fuelled lawnmowers, with an MP who was very much against it.