Cricket in Germany

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The rules of the Howzat? in The Local.

Details of the organization of clubs in Germany can be found in Wikipedia.

This is a rather thin post, but further reading can be found in André Leslie: Batting for Berlin – the author is an Australian cricketer who moved to Berlin.

This charming tale uncovers Aussie André’s well-meaning but often failed attempts at integrating into German life and his successful completion of the first ever German cricket tour of India, as he becomes one of Germany’s most noted cricketers and first TV cricket commentator. Anyone who can explain the silly mid-on field position to an audience of extremely literal-minded Germans is doing well.

And then there’s Field of Shadows: The Remarkable True Story of the English Cricket Tour of Nazi Germany, 1937. By Dan Waddell. (Economist article Herr Howzat). The Reichssportführer, Hans von Tschammer und Osten, invited the MCC to play in Germany in 1937.

Some skilled detective work by Dan Waddell, an occasional crime-writer, reveals this unlikely story in an eccentric and improbably entertaining short book.

Some pictures in this BBC article.

Eleven years

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This blog has now been running for eleven years.

Contrary to appearances, I have a lot of ideas to post.

However, first of all I need to change the software, because every time there is a spam attack, the provider’s server gets into difficulties. I haven’t got much time when I can do that.

On top of that, the broadband here has broken down and is about to be upgraded. The attached ancient Linksys router was what couldn’t be repaired. I have been existing on a T-Mobile-USB stick, but that has caused difficulties to my virtual machine. When the broadband is upgraded, I will have to set up a new network, which I have forgotten how to do. And in order to reinstall STAR Transit, I have to deactivate it (if I can) and reactivate it. Downloading the manuals, which did not contain the relevant information, finished my T-Mobile downloading options for the foreseeable future. The boiler has also broken down, but fortunately it is warm at the moment.

I do have an official work website, but I haven’t accessed that for ages and it gives the impression I’m in Germany.

This post was written yesterday, in case I can’t get online again quickly.

Here are some pictures to compensate.

Door closed:

Heavily protected NHS dentists:

No junk mail:

A selfie:

LATER NOTE: Bettina has blogged on our first online meeting and the old internet days.

Beschwerde/appeal

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strafrechtsblogger (Konstantin Stern) has been continuing its series on Englisch für Strafverteidiger – English for criminal defence lawyers. I am sorry to appear to be picking on this, and I did like the post on Der Beschuldigte. There have been 19 posts on English so far – I may have missed some. But when it comes to Beschwerde, I feel my fingers reaching for the keyboard.

Die Beschwerde lässt sich mit complaint sowie grievance übersetzen.

Für das Einlegen der Beschwerde gibt es mehrere Möglichkeiten. Entweder wird es simpel mit to complain übersetzt, oder es wird aus den Verben to lodge, to file oder to make a und dem Substantiv complaint zusammengesetzt. Beispiel: to make a complaint.

One nice thing about these entries is that they are down-to-earth and simple. As soon as I start taking it apart, it will appear complex and confusing – possibly a reason I should never have been a teacher.

But this will not stop me. Still, at the outset, here’s my summary: I would translate Beschwerde as appeal, and if necessary add some more description. The word appeal is used fairly widely in English and will cover Berufung, Revision, Beschwerde and more, although if their specific meaning is important, more detail will be needed.

Now down to brass tacks:

1. Grievance is not appropriate, because it is part of general English, not legal terminology.

2. Here’s a definition of Beschwerde in German.

There are various kinds of Beschwerde, but they are never directed against judgments.

Robbers, Introduction to German Law, has: ‘request for relief from an administraive act; interlocutory appeal in civil proceedings’.

Dietl: Beschwerde 1. (als Rechtsmittel)ë appeal (gegen from)
auf Grund der Beschwerde des (als Rechtsmittel) … on an appeal by …
Das Rechtsmittel der Beschwerde findet gegen solche Entscheidungen statt, durch die ein das Verfahren betreffendes Gesuch zurückgewiesen ist.
“Beschwerde” is an appeal to the higher court from the dismissal of a motion (or application) concerning a procedural issue.

Romain: complaint (injustice, grievance to superior, etc), grievance, request for relief; remonstrance, appeal against an administrative act; interlocutory appeal, appeal from a court order (from interlocutory or final decisions in the form of an order and not judgment)

3. Finally, what is a complaint, in legal terms? The Oxford Dictionary of Law defines it as follows:

1. The document used to start certain types of criminal proceedings in a magistrates’ court, or the process of using such a document to start proceedings. 2. A formal allegation of a crime.

That rules complaint out as a translation of Beschwerde in England and Wales.
In the USA, according to Black’s Ninth, it can also mean ‘the initial pleading that starts a civil action’.

Yet another book I haven’t read

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Dietrich Busse’s Recht als Text first came out in 1992. It looks like a heavy linguistics text.

From Words to Deeds describes the book as a classic on German legal linguistics and links to a video describing its value. The video shows Professor Anne Lise Kjær describing the book – in Danish, fortunately with English subtitles.

For Professor Kjaer, this book is important because it promotes an approach bringing together linguistics, jurisprudence and social science, where the institutional framework of law and the roles of judges, lawyers and lay parties in a trial are essential to understanding and analyzing the language of the law. Professor Kjaer also stresses the importance of text in a lawyer’s work.

It’s a sad fact of growing old that one can begin to say: here is a book I am unlikely to get round to.

Loss of capitals in court names

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There’s going to be a ruling today on whether whole-life sentences for murder are acceptable or whether the European Court of Human Rights should prevail.

It’s in poor taste, perhaps, that the capitalization in The Guardian was what caught my eye – Joshua Rozenberg’s article:

One of the most important sentencing cases in many years comes before the court of appeal on Friday. …

At a broader level, the court will have to decide whether to follow English law or human rights law as declared by the European court in Strasbourg. Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, will certainly be taking a close interest in the outcome. …

The lord chief justice is sitting, of course. On either side of Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd will be two judges who will have hoped they might now be occupying his chair: Sir Brian Leveson, president of the Queen’s bench division, and Lady Justice Hallett, vice-president of the court of appeal criminal division. Sitting with them will be Lord Justice Treacy, who succeeded Leveson as chairman of the sentencing council, and Mr Justice Burnett, a well-regarded public lawyer who was counsel to the Princess Diana inquest before he became a judge. …

It was because of a ruling of the European court of human rights delivered last July in a case called Vinter. The court’s grand chamber had found that “there must be both a prospect of release and a possibility of review” for a life sentence to be compatible with article 3 of the human rights convention, which bans “inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. … the Council of Europe, which runs the human rights court. … Northampton crown court … the Human Rights Act, courts in the UK need only “take into account” Strasbourg rulings unless it is possible to interpret them in a way that is compatible with human rights.

Queen’s bench division? Why not queen’s bench division then? Human Rights Act but human rights convention?

I wonder what the Guardian Style Guide (style guide?) would tweet on this?

Guardian, Observer and guardian.co.uk style guide.

Telegraph style book on courts and crime.

The Economist Style Guide on capitals:

A balance has to be struck between so many capitals that the eyes dance and so few that the reader is diverted more by our style than by our substance. The general rule is to dignify with capital letters organisations and institutions, but not people. More exact rules are laid out below. Even these, however, leave some decisions to individual judgment. If in doubt use lower case unless it looks absurd. And remember that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” (Ralph Waldo Emerson).

Qaddafi? Benedict? Schröder?

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