The Law West of Ealing Broadway, by Bystander:

bq. The Magistrate’s Blog – Musings and Snippets from an English Magistrate (Justice of the Peace). This blog is anonymous, and Bystander’s views are his and his alone. Where his views differ from the letter of the law, he will enforce the letter of the law because that is what he has sworn to do. If you think that you can identify a particular case from one of the posts you are wrong. Enough facts are changed to preserve the truth of the tale but to disguise its exact source.

This looks very promising, and it has further links which I haven’t checked.

bq. Evidence is given on oath in court. Witnesses have the choice to affirm or to swear on the holy book of their choice. Court staff are trained to be sensitive in handling holy books, and unless the witness looks to be reasonably educated it is standard practice for the usher to ask him to repeat the oath, which is a sad but realistic reflection on the English education system that manages to give children a minimum of twelve years’ compulsory schooling that leaves a fifth of them unable to read competently, or even at all. Inevitably, some people finish off with the “So Help Me God” that they have seen on American TV programmes.

In Germany, witnesses are normally not sworn, because it is thought to weaken the oath if it’s overused. Sometimes they’re sworn afterwards, but usually the parties waive the right to have the witnesses sworn. At the beginning of a trial I’ve heard a Franconian judge say to the witnesses, ‘Ihr wisst fei, dass Ihr die Wahrheit sagen müsst?’ – To swear is schwören, to affirm is bekräftigen, but in my experience not all judges are aware of the variant without the Bible. Still, it may vary from place to place.

Note some interaction with a French legal blog.

Via Random Acts of Reality

Der schon erwähnte Artikel ist jetzt auf Deutsch erschienen in der Financial Times Deutschland: Die neue Lingua germanica (thanks, Robin B).

Unter dem Artikel sind zwei Links, einer zu (an?) einem kostenpflichtigen Artikel über Englisch in der Werbung, wahrscheinlich eine bekannte Sache, und einer zu einer kurzen Buchempfehlung von einem Buch,

bq. Wörterbuch für Geschäftsberichte. Deutsch-Englisch/Englisch-Deutsch Reinhold Falkner Books on Demand 2004, 232 S., 29,95 Euro, ISBN 3833416343

Da wäre ich vorsichtig, das ist heutzutage ein weites Feld. Vielleicht kennt jemand das Buch und weiß, ob es nützlich ist.

Deutscher Artikel: Studie: Giftspritze bei US-Exekutionen wird nachlässig angewendet. Die Giftspritze wird angewendet, gerade weil sie als human gilt:

bq. Bei den Hinrichtungen mit der Giftspritze in den USA sind viele Häftlinge nach einer neuen wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung möglicherweise bei Bewusstsein und empfinden Schmerz. Wie die britische Fachzeitschrift “The Lancet” (2005; 365: 1412-14) am 14. April vorab meldete, kommt die US-Studie zu dem Schluss, dass diese Exekutionen so nachlässig ausgeführt würden, dass sie hinter den Standards von Veterinären für das Töten kranker Tiere zurückblieben.

BBC News article: Prisoners ‘aware’ in executions

bq. Prisoners executed by lethal injection in the US may have been aware of what was happening to them, researchers claim.
A team from the University of Miami looked at information on anaesthesia and awareness in prisoners.
They suggest some suffer unnecessarily, and claim standards do not meet those for putting animals down.

Via UK Criminal Justice Weblog, which has more links (indeed, it’s always a wonderful source of links). Original source is The Lancet.

From Wordlab I discover you can spell with flickr. You can also change individual letters at a mouseclick when you create your word:

Das Variantenwörterbuch des Deutschen wurde schon überall empfohlen. Ich habe es aber erst jetzt gekauft, da ich übersah, dass es “Die Standardsprache in Österreich, der Schweiz und Deutschland sowie in Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, Ostbelgien und Südtirol” behandelt, d.h. für juristische Ausdrücke durchaus nützlich ist. amazon.de-Link (now removed re malware):

Ich frage mich jetzt bloß, ob ich lieber die gebundene Ausgabe hätte. Hoffentlich bricht der Rücken des Buchs nicht auseinander.

Die Einträge enthalten auch Querverweise zu Synonymen in den anderen Varianten.

Das Buch zeigt auch Begriffe, die deutsch sind und nicht gleichzeitig auch österreichisch, was ganz nützlich bei einigen Rechtsbegriffen ist.

Einträge geben Definitionen und Beispielsätze. Es gibt eine sicher nützliche Bibliographie.

At the Kater Verlag website, you can see a page or two of the books, by clicking on Entscheidungshilfe. It’s listed under Sprache – scroll down.

An example from the book: Kridatar Kridatarin is Austrian. There is a Swiss equivalent (q.v.), Konkursit. Def. ‘Schuldner(in), über dessen bzw. deren Vermögen ein Konkursverfahren stattfindet, durch das alle Gläubiger anteilmäßig befriedigt werden sollen; Gemeinschuldner(in).’ Example: ‘Diversion bedeutete, dass der Kridatar vor allem bei fahrlässiger Krida nicht verurteilt werden muss, sondern das Verfahren auf eine Probezeit von zwei Jahren eingestellt werden kann.’

I had a query this week:

bq. Is there an “official” English translation of the “BImSchG” available anywhere on the Internet? I have a couple of paragraphs as a quote.

Since this comes up frequently, here is a note of my answer:

1. Check at the two websites that link to English translations of German statutes (and delegated legislation): the German Law Archive (the Statutes page has a list of web links first and a list of printed versions second) and Robin Stocks’ page at Carob (click at the top right of the screen on German laws in English).

You may like to start with Robin, because he uses only the German names, which makes it easier to find the right one.

In my opinion, none of these translations are official and you should certainly not rely on them completely.

2. If you don’t find a translation, try a web search. There are many more translations out there (please let me know the link if you find one). Many German ministries have translation on their sites, and so do international law firms. Maybe searching the Deep Web will help. Here’s an LLRX article on Deep Web Research 2005 with many links. – If you find a translation of a statute, please send me the link. I send all the links I find to the two sites mentioned above.

3. Even if you don’t find a translation, you may well find an article or newsletter on a law or accountancy firm site that describes the effect of a statute in detail and that will give you ideas for the vocabulary you need. Just enter a few of the German terms and some likely English terms into Google and see what comes up.

In the case in question, I found a translation by Inter Nationes via Robin’s site. This was on page 37 of a PDF file.

That site gives two translations of the title, Bundes-Immissdionsschutzgesetz_ Act on the Prevention of Harmful Effects on the Environment caused by Air Pollution, Noise, Vibration and Similar Phenomena / Federal Immission Control Act.

I used to use the first of these, but now I use Federal Environmental Impact Act (thanks to Marc ‘Linux for Translators’ Prior). When I had to translate the title recently I enquired of English-speaking translators in Britain whether the word immission has entered the English language yet, and the consensus was that it hasn’t. It isn’t in Collins English Dictionary, whereas it is in German dictionaries of the same size.

These translations are often used, as in this case, to give the client an idea of the legislation. Sometimes you will have to go to a printed version, or rather, it will probably be too late for that, since deadlines seem to be getting shorter.