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Coming to Terms with the Supranational: Translating for the European Court of Human Rights

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International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique Aims and scope Submit manuscript

… le droit supranational traduit s’exprime dans une langue artificielle, technique et administrable. Il s’agit d’une langue institutionnalisée qui dépouille le langage juridique de toute empreinte culturelle propre. [13: 700]

Abstract

Translators at the European Court of Human Rights, as at other international courts, have to deal with two different types of legal terminology in judgments and decisions: on the one hand, terms that would be used by a national practitioner in the relevant language, and on the other, the supranational language that has evolved in general international law or that is specific to the Court itself, being enshrined in its basic texts or case-law. The choice of translation will often be imposed by the source text, which may be a constraint; extensive knowledge of the Court’s autonomous terms and other “linguistic precedent” is vital if they are to be used accurately and consistently. The task of devising and using supranational terms to encompass domestic realities in as many as 47 States is not only that of the drafter; the linguist also has a crucial role to play in conveying the Court’s message in a culture-neutral manner.

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Notes

  1. The examples in this article will reflect the English and French legal terms used in Europe.

  2. Judgments are given by a Grand Chamber of 17 judges or a Chamber of 7; decisions mainly concern issues of admissibility.

  3. Accessible via the Court’s website http://www.echr.coe.int/ECHR/Homepage_EN (visited 10 April 2013).

  4. See Popović [15: 373] on the subject of translation by the Court’s lawyers; there is one judge, and usually at least one lawyer, for/from each of the 47 States, accounting for about 38 potential non-official languages; translations of the parties’ observations in such languages are usually outsourced for Grand Chamber cases.

  5. Most recently emphasised at the High Level Conference in April 2012: see the Brighton Declaration, point 9(d)(i), encouraging the States parties to “[e]nsure that significant judgments of the Court are translated or summarised into national languages where this is necessary for them to be properly taken into account”.

  6. In early 2013 HUDOC contained about 3,000 translations into 23 languages other than English and French; non-official translations are published for information purposes only and the Court accepts no responsibility for their quality or content.

  7. See http://www.echr.coe.int/ECHR/EN/Header/Case-Law/Decisions+and+judgments/Translations/ (visited 10 April 2013).

  8. See Brannan [4] and Weston [22], [24].

  9. See for example Berteloot [2], Despretz [6] and McAuliffe [12] on the ECJ; for the international criminal tribunals, see Sirois [17], Stern [18] and Sauron [16].

  10. Fletcher [7] analyses the rendering of these terms in French and Spanish in the ICC Rome Statute; issues concerning Convention-related translation into non-official languages have been studied, for example, by Garre [8] for Danish, and König [10] for German.

  11. For example, in one case, to “restrain” publication (by an injunction) was translated wrongly from the English, in the sense of “restrict”, whereas translations from the French “interdire” (prohibit) were more accurate.

  12. No Judgment–No Justice, Lord Neuberger, First annual BAILII Lecture, 20 November 2012 (p. 11), http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk/docs/speech-121120.pdf (visited 10 April 2013).

  13. House of Lords, The Workload of the Court of Justice of the European Union, oral evidence (p. 15), http://www.parliament.uk/documents/lords-committees/eu-sub-com-e/CourtofJustice/CJEUoeawe.pdf (visited 10 April 2013).

  14. Writing Judgments, Lord Hope of Craighead, Judicial Studies Board Annual Lecture 2005 (p. 1), http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/media/speeches/2005/jsb-lecture-2005 (visited 10 April 2013).

  15. See The Sunday Times v. the United Kingdom (no. 1), 26 April 1979, Series A no. 30, § 48.

  16. Luedicke, Belkacem and Koç v. Germany, 28 November 1978, Series A no. 29.

  17. See, for example, Hermi v. Italy [Grand Chamber], no. 18114/02, ECHR 2006-XII, §§ 69 and 71.

  18. Stoll v. Switzerland [GC], no. 69698/01, ECHR 2007-V, §§ 58–62 (application by the Court of Article 33 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, governing multilingual interpretation issues).

  19. See Letsas [11: 282–283], with reference to specific case-law, the French being added here.

  20. For “public interest” see James and Others v. the United Kingdom, 21 February 1986, Series A no. 98, § 42, where a narrower meaning would have supported the applicants’ case.

  21. Hirsi Jamaa and Others v. Italy [GC], no. 27765/09, ECHR 2012, §§ 159 et seq.

  22. See Bolat v. Russia, no. 14139/03, ECHR 2006-XI, § 79, being consistent with the Explanatory Report to Protocol No. 7 (1984), § 10: “The concept of expulsion is used in a generic sense… Expulsion in this sense is an autonomous concept which is independent of any definition contained in domestic legislation”; see also Sudre [21: 243].

  23. See Bissardon [3: 169–170], also for the other use of expulsion in the sense of eviction.

  24. An “accusé” is a person charged with a crime who is tried in a cour d’assises (see [3: 8] and [23: 126]); for the autonomous meaning see Subiali v. France, no. 65372/01, 14 September 2004, § 46.

  25. Deweer v. Belgium, 27 February 1980, § 42; see also Sudre [19: 32–33].

  26. Directive 2012/13/EU of 22 May 2012 on the right to information in criminal proceedings, OJ L 142, 1 June 2012.

  27. See Amendment 2 in the Draft Report of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (PE452.900), 20 December 2010, changing “charge” to “accusation”: “Accusation seems to be a better and more flexible wording in view of the transposition by Member States”; see also the explanation in the Committee Report of 25 November 2011 (A7-0408/2011): “Article 6(1) ECHR employs the term ‘charge’. In this Directive, for reasons of consistency of the text, the term ‘accusation’ is used throughout the text to describe the same concept”; and Recital 14 of the Directive.

  28. Directive 2010/64/EU of 20 October 2010 on the right to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings, OJ L 280, 26 October 2010; the French translation “charges” here is somewhat misleading.

  29. The French expression was used by the former European Commission of Human Rights in 1958, then translated as “measure of discretion”; however the following year the current “margin of appreciation” was used apparently by an English-speaking member (see Lawless v. Ireland, Commission Report, 19 December 1959, pp. 85 and 119), so the perpetrator was apparently not a translator!

  30. The Universality of Human Rights, Lord Hoffmann, Judicial Studies Board Annual Lecture 2009, http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/media/speeches/2009/speech-lord-hoffman-19032009 (visited 10 April 2013).

  31. The term “linguistic precedent” has been used by Weston [22: 687, 24: 456].

  32. Regina v. Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent) ex parte Greenfield (FC) (Appellant), [2005] UKHL 14, §§ 14–15.

  33. Apparent, because in some cases slight modification may be deliberate; in others, the existence of a hidden quote may not be obvious at first sight and any references given in the source text may be unhelpful.

  34. Soering v. the United Kingdom, 7 July 1989, § 113, Series A no. 161.

  35. Compare, for example, Ahorugeze v. Sweden, no. 37075/09, 27 October 2011, § 113, with Othman (Abu Qatada) v. the United Kingdom, no. 8139/09, 17 January 2012, § 258.

  36. Kamasinski v. Austria, 19 December 1989, § 79, Series A no. 168.

  37. Hermi v. Italy, cited above, § 68 (both language versions are authentic as this is a Grand Chamber case); the French in both cases reads: “Un accusé à qui la langue employée par le tribunal n’est pas familière peut en pratique se trouver désavantagé si on ne lui délivre pas aussi une traduction de l’acte d’accusation, établie dans un idiome qu’il comprenne”.

  38. Neulinger and Shuruk v. Switzerland [GC], no. 41615/07, ECHR 2010, §§ 49–57, under “Relevant Domestic and International Law and Practice”.

  39. “The child’s best interests must be the primary consideration…, as is indeed apparent from the Preamble to the Hague Convention, which provides that ‘the interests of children are of paramount importance in matters relating to their custody…’”.

  40. The use of this adjective by the Court in a different case has been criticised; see UK Human Rights Blog, 15 February 2012, “Strasbourg in the Primordial Soup”, http://ukhumanrightsblog.com/2012/02/15/strasbourg-in-the-primordial-soup/ (visited 10 April 2013).

  41. ZH (Tanzania) (FC) (Appellant) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent), [2011] UKSC 4 §§ 21–28 (Lady Hale).

  42. See Berteloot [2: 529]: “… la Cour et le Tribunal prennent leur distance par rapport à des notions nationales ou, si un mot ou une expression appartenant au vocabulaire juridique spécialisé d’un ordre juridique apparaît, il n’est pas sûr qu’il s’agisse de la même notion.”.

  43. Sauron [16: 20] gives the example of the non-legal term “situation”, used for a specific concept in the ICC Rome Statute.

  44. See, for example, Weston [23] and Harvey [9].

  45. The generic term “pre-trial detention” has also been adopted by the European Commission, which, in a Green Paper, explains that “the notion ‘pre-trial detention’… is used in a ‘broad’ sense and includes all prisoners who have not been finally judged” (see “Strengthening mutual trust in the European judicial area—A Green Paper on the application of EU criminal justice legislation in the field of detention” COM(2011) 327, 14 June 2011, p. 8).

  46. Weston [23: 129] makes the point that “detention pending trial” is not ideal as a translation of détention provisoire as not all detainees will subsequently face trial.

  47. For example, in Recommendation Rec (2006)13 of the Committee of Ministers “on the use of remand in custody”.

  48. The current term in France being détention provisoire (formerly and still in Belgium “détention préventive”).

  49. Council Framework Decision 2009/829/JHA, 23 October 2009, on the application, between Member States of the European Union, of the principle of mutual recognition to decisions on supervision measures as an alternative to provisional detention.

  50. See “Does England have house arrest?”, BBC News, 18 June 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7460736.stm (visited 10 April 2013).

  51. The more specific term “placement en rétention” is used, for example, in an EU directive on asylum seekers (2005/85/EC, 1 December 2005, Article 18).

  52. The translation given for “partie civile” by Bridge [5: 228]; compare with “civil party” in Hamer v. France, 7 August 1996.

  53. The term “civil party” has also recently been adopted in the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia.

  54. See Marckx v. Belgium, 13 June 1979, Series A no. 31.

  55. The expression used in the 1993 Hague Convention on intercountry adoption. See, for example, Emonet and Others v. Switzerland (no. 39051/03, 13 December 2007, §§ 14 and 57); the adjective “legal” has sometimes been omitted but arguably the term is then ambiguous.

  56. See, for example, the translation in Wagner and J.M.W.L. v. Luxembourg, no. 76240/01, 28 June 2007.

  57. See Sauron [16: 21]; “mental element” (in fact “élément psychologique” in the French) is the heading of Article 30 of the ICC Rome Statute.

  58. Concurring opinion of Judge Tulkens in Liuiza v. Lithuania (no. 13472/06, 31 July 2012); the translation of a separate opinion (from the other official language) is always identified as such, but where the judgment itself is only in one language the original version of the opinion will not be available on line.

  59. In Neulinger (op. cit., § 102) the Court found that “custody” had an autonomous meaning under the Hague Convention, going beyond what is actually referred to as such in the various States.

  60. Likewise, French translators usually prefer to continue using inculpation (still used in Belgium), rather than the term mise en examen (introduced in France in 1993).

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    James Brannan

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Brannan, J. Coming to Terms with the Supranational: Translating for the European Court of Human Rights. Int J Semiot Law 26, 909–925 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-013-9320-2

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