Translating and interpreting at the Court
Article 42 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice
Article 42 Language service of the Court
The Court shall set up a language service staffed by experts with adequate legal training
and a thorough knowledge of several official languages of the European Union.
Interpretation
In a full multilingual interpretation regime, all official languages can be used and interpretation can be provided into all of those languages. In practice, however, it is rare to have to need such complete language coverage. The interpretation service provides an ‘à la carte’ system which adjusts according to the Court’s needs. Two methods of interpretation are practiced at the Court: simultaneous interpretation and consecutive interpretation.
For simultaneous interpretation, the interpreters, who are allocated to booths, interpret the oral arguments, questions and answers exchanged in the courtrooms by the various participants in the hearing. There are at least two interpreters in each booth because, given the intellectual effort involved in interpreting, they have to take turns, for example at the end of a set of oral arguments or a question-and-answer session, in order to maintain the same level of concentration and thus quality. The quality of the interpretation largely depends on the careful preparation of each case by the interpreters. This preparatory work involves collaborating with both the assistants who compile the files and the reference documents, and with the transversal units, in particular in the event of a need for support in the field of terminology.
The other working method, consecutive interpretation, is where the interpreters take notes during the speaker’s address and reproduce the content thereof consecutively. That technique is often used at formal events, visits and receptions.
Interpretation during the hearings is done directly as much as possible. Thus, the interpreter orally translates into his or her language the speech of the orator, without an intermediary. Sometimes, the interpreter must practice so-called ‘relay’ interpretation. In that case, the interpretation is not carried out directly from the language of the speaker, but from the interpretation provided by a colleague from another language booth who is able to provide it directly into his or her language.
In principle, each interpreter carries out interpretation into their native language only. However, some interpreters have mastered another language to the point of being able to interpret into it as the active language, as if it were their native language. This is called ‘retour’ interpretation.
Legal translation
At the heart of the Court’s translation activity is the lawyer-linguist, a lawyer who has completed a full course of legal studies in one of the Member States and has a good knowledge of at least two other languages and legal systems at the time of recruitment. Lawyer-linguists are responsible for a complex and technical task: they must manage a portfolio of translations while maintaining a very high level of quality and output, all while ensuring strict compliance with deadlines.
Before beginning a translation, it is essential for the lawyer-linguist to identify, obtain and analyse all the relevant reference documents in order to acquire a good understanding of the legal context of the case and identify the appropriate terminology. Translation at the Court is not free translation: regulatory acts, case-law or written pleadings quoted directly or indirectly must be meticulously reproduced in the target language. The same applies to the terminology used.
Each translation task is accompanied by an entire system designed to guarantee efficiency, based on organisational and technical preparation of the work by the transversal units and management beforehand.
In order to carry out their work, lawyer-linguists use specific methods and strategies, and are increasingly assisted by IT tools that have to be mastered so that their added-value can be integrated without any impact on the quality of the work produced, particularly in terms of accuracy and reliability.
While continuing to favour direct translation whenever the necessary expertise is available in the language units, with 24 official languages, there are now 552 possible language combinations. It was therefore necessary to set up a complementary system to direct translation, namely translation via a limited number of pivot languages, selected on the basis of technical criteria. A pivot language is a predetermined language into which a document is translated from a predetermined group of languages in order to allow its subsequent translation into other languages. Each pivot language unit has been allocated a number of languages from which the translation into the language of that unit will be produced. This pivot version will then be used by the other units for translation into their own language.
See also
