The German American Law Journal blog recently mentioned the one-sided views of foreign law we get from newspapers. I mentioned that here too. Now I find an addition, saying ‘A blogged discourse may help on occasion’.

The discourse (nice word, that) in question is here – an argument that appeared in the comments of the blog Useful Fools. The discussion is started by John Moore as follows:

The German “justice” system just handed down a sentence on the first terrorist convicted in the murder of 3000 people on 9-11. The maximum sentence of 15 years was imposed on Mounir el-Motassadeq.
MAXIMUM OF 15 YEARS? That works out to 43.8 hours per murder!

(there is more – I think the remarks are somewhat affected by the arguments in the press at that time before the Iraq war).

Torsten B., a German lawyer, lists a lot of facts about German law in reply, ending with a heated flourish.

Torsten’s contribution is quite useful, although after reading the whole argument, I’m not sure how enlightening it is. Towards the end, one Sean posts a highly ill-informed account of the common law he got from a German who worked in Ireland, obviously based on the illusion that common law means custom (widely believed in Germany):

this is pretty interesting stuff. i had the opportunity to travel to Germany for two weeks last month. i had a fascinating conversation with a German man who was home from Ireland where he works. he was very clearly a member of the left. he described himself as “coming out of the labor movement.”
he explained to me that the main difference between the mainland Europe legal system and that of the UK and USA is the concept of common law. the USA/UK system assumes that law is made by codifying its application. law is simply a system of general customs and norms. if it was done a particular way for a while, it will continue to be that way. if something is similar to an old problem, the old way of doing it will be bent a bit to fit, and we’ll run with it.

In the German version of the German American Law Journal Blog, there is an entry – in German, of course – qualifying the importance of the recent $2 m verdict against spammers.

Die Bedeutung dieses Urteils darf jedoch nicht überschätzt werden, da es lediglich als Versäumnisurteil erging. Es hat keinen Wert als Präzedenzfall, und dient somit eher politischer Propaganda. Hierfür spricht unter anderem, dass die Klage vom kalifornischen Justizminister (Attorney General) Bill Lockyer erhoben worden ist, der in sein Amt gewählt wird und Spam ein in der Bevölkerung heiss diskutiertes Thema darstellt.

A German book about the British and their relationship to Europe has appeared recently (only in German). It is called Großbritannien – Insel zwischen den Welten, and is by a journalist on the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Christian Schubert.

The Guardian has a report on the book by Luke Harding:

bq. Schubert describes a day in the life of the typical British family – Mr and Mrs Jones – for his German readers. The Joneses get their children ready for school and Mr Jones then goes to work on the train. Mrs Jones collects the kids at 3pm (much later than in Germany); in the evening she shoves a ready-made meal from Marks & Spencer in the microwave (Britons eat more ready-made meals than any other European nation, except for Sweden). The following morning, Mr Jones has a shower. He doesn’t have a proper, powerful shower like you get in Germany, though, but stands under a miserable trickle of water.

bq. Our failure to guarantee vigorous water pressure, Schubert laments, is a result of a more general British failing: we don’t invest in our own infrastructure.

Steve Taylor is a London campaigner for prison reform, and he has a large number of photos of prisons on his site, showing the architecture.

These photos were taken to illustrate two books: one is English Prisons: an Architectural History (£40, ISBN: 1873592531), and the other is Behind Bars : The Hidden Architecture of England’s Prisons (£10, ISBN: 1873592396)

I’ve given the ISBNs because particularly the second one was hard to trace – the title Behind Bars has been used inter alia for books on mixing drinks, barcodes, running a pub, and zoos.

Handakte WebLAWg recently published a link in St. Gallen with further links to commercial registers all over the world except in Switzerland, and the zefix site with links for inside Switzerland. (Zefix stands for Zentraler Firmenindex).

I took this from a tram, so it isn’t very sharp.

Here’s a translation I saw recently:

Weitere Ansprüche bestehen – unbeschadet Ziffer 4 – nicht.

Notwithstanding Section 4, no further claims shall be allowed.

(§ 4 permits some claims)

I probably would have written:

Subject to number 4 below, there shall be no other claims.

I always write ‘below’ or ‘above’ when citing from the same document – it’s normal English-language legal practice. I am not sure about ‘section’ for a contract, but suppose it’s OK. I think ‘allowed’ is a bit free for ‘bestehen’.

Unbeschadet is given in Dietl as follows:

without prejudice to; notwithstanding

Note the semi-colon: these really are two different meanings. To me, notwithstanding would mean ‘No matter what rubbish number 4 says, just ignore it: there are no other claims’, whereas subject to means ‘There are no other claims, but this statement doesn’t affect number 4: the claims in number 4 do exist’.

Romain has: notwithstanding, irrespective of, without affecting, without prejudice to, not in derogation of, saving

von Beseler/Jacobs-Wüstefeld has: without prejudice/detriment to; without affecting; [einer Forderung, etc.] apart from; irrespective of; regardless of; notwithstanding, [Lat] non obstante; saving; [einer Bestimmung] subject to

Lister/Veth has: without prejudice to; regardless of; notwithstanding

This came up in ProZ once. I think the asker was right to choose ‘without prejudice to any claim for damages’.

Or am I splitting hairs?