The BBC reports that a sign saying ‘No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only’ reads in Welsh ‘I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated’.

(Thanks to u-forum – must have slipped past AvO)

The Illicit Cultural Property Blog reported recently that pre-Columbian objects of Costa Rica’s national heritage valued at more than 100 million dollars are not being retrieved for lack of funds for a Spanish-German translation.

(Spotted by Trevor)

Introduction to English law for translators and/or non-lawyers

Following the list of geographical and political terms around the islands, I now turn to the legal systems in the United Kingdom.

The first point is that there are three legal systems in the UK: in England and Wales; in Scotland; and in Northern Ireland.

We don’t usually talk about UK law or British law.

To compare:

Germany is a unitary state with federal law. There is some law that varies from Land to Land, but most law is federal. It’s German law.

The USA has fifty states and a federal district – these are separate jurisdictions. Thus you get the law of New York, the law of California, the law of Texas and so on. It also has federal law, not a huge amount but some: U.S. law.

But the UK has no federal law, although it has a central parliament in Westminster, and a central government and monarch (there has been some devolution in recent years to the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, and Northern Ireland has an Assembly too and has intermittently had some self-government since it came into existence).

This is put succinctly by the New Oxford Companion to Law:

The United Kingdom is an unusual state in that it is comprised of three separate legal systems … This reflects the history of relationships amongst these entities. When the United Kingdom came into being in 1801, it was not a traditional unitary state. While a head of state, government, and Parliament were all shared, when the new United Kingdom Parliament legislated for this new state it was not making United Kingdom or British law, but rather making common provisions which would apply in all of the three legal systems. This continues under the devolution arrangements which have been in place since 1999. There is no separate system of federal law in respect of those powers which have not been devolved from the Westminster Parliament to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, and the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Terms: Jurisdiction: One could say: there are three legal systems, or three jurisdictions. One meaning of jurisdiction is an area with its own legal system. Thus the term ‘English law’ is short for ‘English and Welsh law’ and refers to the legal system in the jurisdiction of England and Wales. This term has no simple equivalent in German. Jurisdiction can also mean the area of a court’s jurisdiction (Gerichtsbezirk, Zuständigkeit).

The best translation into German of ‘in various/several/other jurisdictions’ is often ‘in … Ländern’.

One sometimes encounters the German term Jurisdiktion translated as Rechtsprechung or die rechtsprechende Gewalt. Here we are getting into deeper waters. Problems my students had here may have resulted from the fact that they weren’t really familiar with the terms in German, so the English equivalent didn’t register either. Die rechtsprechende Gewalt, one of the three branches of power, is the judiciary (Richterschaft).

The three branches of power: the executive, the legislature, the judiciary (Exekutive, Legislative, Judikative).

But Rechtsprechung is more commonly used to mean case law.

Of course, the literal translation from the Latin of Jurisdiktion is Rechtsprechung, but that doesn’t help.

English law: (now) the law of England and Wales

There are separate legal systems in the Isle of Man and the Channel Isles, but these are not part of the UK.

English law today means the legal system of England and Wales, with its system of courts and lawyers. Historically, England was the country where the common law first developed. It spread from England to Wales and to the whole of the island of Ireland, but it did not spread to Scotland. Scots law is a hybrid system, a mixture of civil law (kontinentaleuropäisch) and common law. Thus the legal system in the independent country Ireland is closer to that of England than the legal system in Scotland, a part of the UK.

beck-blog reports that the document of which JUVE apparently had a sneak preview has now appeared (see earlier entry).

Bündnis für das deutsche Recht PDF file
Bundesjustizministerium press release

beck-blog points out some of the reasons why German law is not always popular abroad.

Auf glattes Unverständnis trifft insbesondere das AGB-Recht, denn hier können die meisten nicht nachvollziehen, warum Grundsätze, die aus dem Verbraucherschutz kommen, auch zwischen Unternehmen gelten sollen. Zum ”schlechten Image” des deutschen Rechts trägt maßgeblich auch das deutsche Arbeitsrecht bei, das von vielen ausländischen Unternehmen als zu einseitig arbeitnehmerschützend wahrgenommen wird.

In Germany one gets married at a register office, and a church wedding is an extra.
In the UK, one gets married at a register office, or in a church, or in various other places – the paperwork can be done at any.

But the law varies between the three jurisdictions: England and Wales; Scotland; Northern Ireland. Scotland has traditionally offered a wide range. I did not realize that it is the only UK jurisdiction, and one of only six in the world, where a humanist wedding is legal.

Thus reports Fiona at Divorce Survivor.

See also Your big Day! – tips for planning your humanist wedding in Scotland.

I don’t believe the kilt is obligatory.

Although swing music was banned in Nazi Germany, Goebbels had a band called Charlie and His Orchestra that played nazified versions of the jazz hits of the day for foreign consumption.

YouTube

MP3s

‘Churchill’s latest song’ to the tune of ‘I’m the sheikh of Araby’:

I’m afraid of Germany
Her planes are beating me
At night when I should sleep
Into the Anderson I must creep
Although I’m England’s leading man
I’m led to the cellar by ten
The leader’s in the cellars each night
That’s the only damn way I can fight.

Thanks to Trevor.

According to JUVE, the Bundesrechtsanwaltskammer, Deutscher Anwaltverein (German equivalents of the Law Society of England and Wales), Bundesnotarkammer, Deutscher Richterbund and Bundesjustizministerium are cooking up an alliance to promote German law internationally:

In der kommenden Woche will die BRAK nun ein Positionspapier vorlegen, das gemeinsam mit anderen juristischen Berufsorganisationen – darunter der Deutsche Anwaltverein, die Bundesnotarkammer und der Deutsche Richterbund -, sowie dem Bundesjustizministerium (BMJ) ausgearbeitet wird. Am kommenden Montag sollen im BMJ letzte Details geklärt werden. An den Gesprächen sind offenbar auch das Bundeswirtschaftsministerium und das Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit beteiligt.

(via Handakte WebLAWg)

There will be a meeting on Monday October 27, and presumably news will filter out thereafter. I found another reference in a speech by Brigitte Zypries, the German Minister of Justice, at Erfurt on 23 September. She speaks of exporting German law to China, Vietnam, the Gulf states, the UAE and central Asia, and that the German government plans to increase the budget for this initiative by 52%:

Sehr geehrter Herr Bundespräsident,
Sie haben dankenswerter Weise darauf hingewiesen, dass es in Zeiten der Globalisierung auch einen Wettbewerb der Rechtsordnungen gibt. Deutschland muss diesen Wettbewerb nicht scheuen, denn unsere Rechtsordnung und seine Akteure genießen weltweit hohes Ansehen. Ich meine aber, Deutschland muss sich in diesem Wettbewerb stärker als bisher engagieren. Unser Engagement in Schwellen- und Transformationsländern muss zum Beispiel stärker darauf ausgerichtet sein, win-win-Situationen zu erzielen. Wir helfen unseren Partnerländern beim Aufbau rechtsstaatlicher Strukturen, denn dies ist eine wichtige Voraussetzung für Frieden, Demokratie und Wohlstand. Aber wir wollen mit unserem Engagement auch die wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit stärken und wir wissen: Rechtsexport fördert auch den Import von Investitionen. Erfolgreicher Rechtsexport nützt auch dem Wirtschaftsstandort Deutschland. Heute gibt es viele deutsche Akteure, die sich bei der rechtlichen Zusammenarbeit engagieren. Um unsere Arbeit noch effektiver und effizienter zu machen, brauchen wir klare Prioritäten, mehr Ressourcen und mehr Koordination. Wir befinden uns derzeit in einem Prozess dieser Koordination. Wir wollen dabei regionale Schwerpunkte bilden. Sie sollten in jenen Ländern und Regionen liegen, in denen unser Engagement besonders chancenreich ist, etwa in China und Vietnam, in den Golfstaaten wie den Vereinigten Arabischen Emiraten oder den Ländern Zentralasiens. Auch diese Arbeit setzt eine gute finanzielle Ausstattung voraus. Die Deutsche Stiftung für Internationale Rechtliche Zusammenarbeit bekommt deshalb im nächsten Jahr deutlich mehr Geld als bisher. Der Haushaltsentwurf der Bundesregierung sieht eine Steigerung von 52 Prozent vor. Neben mehr Geld brauchen wir aber auch mehr Kooperation. Seit dem Frühjahr führen wir darüber einen intensiven Dialog. In vier Wochen treffen wir uns im Justizministerium wieder mit vielen Akteuren und mit den Organisationen der Richter, Anwälte und Notare wollen wir dann das schmieden, was unser internationales Engagement nach meiner Einschätzung dringend braucht: Ein breites Bündnis für das deutsche Recht.

Actually, Germany has done quite well exporting its law so far. But JUVE, which has a document in its possession by Axel Filges, a partner in Taylor Wessing and the head of the Bundesrechtsanwaltskammer, to the effect that this is a reaction to a brochure produced by the Law Society in October 2007 praising the advantages of ‘angelsächsisches Recht’ (the common law, I presume).

I have searched for this brochure and I think it is most likely to be one about the advantages of using the English courts for international disputes. It’s entitled England and Wales: the jurisdiction of choice and can be downloaded as a PDF file here.

JUVE also reports that there are plans to translate more German law into other languages – ‘at least into English’ (but this has been done for years, at least behind the scenes).

In dem Papier rufen die Beteiligten zu einem “Bündnis für das deutsche Recht” auf. Ihnen schwebt unter anderem vor, Partnerländer beim Aufbau von deren Rechtsordnung das “bewährte deutsche Recht” zu empfehlen sowie deutsche Rechtstexte vermehrt in andere Sprachen – zumindest in Englisch – zu übersetzen, “um im internationalen Wettbewerb der Rechtssysteme überhaupt agieren zu können”.