Language in the Minimum Guarantees of Fair Criminal Trial (original) (raw)
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2018
Defining linguistic justice to mean whether the parties to the proceedings have been addressed by the ICTY in their own language, this study explores the conditions for the delivery of linguistic justice in a context where language plays a role in the conflict. After the brief history of language and identity-related conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, the study explores language-related rights, obligations, and requirements incumbent on the ICTY parties. Then, it explores specific standards and qualities of language professionals providing language services at the ICTY. Finally, it turns to their output establishing whether the legal truths established by ICTY have been properly communicated for posterity.
The Impact of Legal Translation on Criminal Proceedings
Deleted Journal, 2024
This article explores the little-known need for the role of legal interpreters in the courtroom, particularly in criminal proceedings. This article, based on research in the professional literature, explores common misconceptions about the role of the legal translator, experienced by experienced professionals and likely experienced by many others in the courtroom. This article attempts to shed light on the complexities of legal translation and the challenges it faces in the criminal justice system. The article highlights important circumstances of the role of law, equality and justice can only be achieved if translations meet the highest standards. It also argues that safeguarding the integrity of the evidence and the defendant's right to a fair trial is accomplished by accurate translation. To achieve this, we use qualitative methods to tease out the full meaning of the topic through a scientific and insightful process.
Multilingualism at the Court of Justice: Theoretical and Practical Aspects
Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric , 2013
The paper analyses and evaluates the linguistic policy of the Court of Justice of the European Union against the background of other multilingual courts and in the light of theories of legal interpretation. Multilingualism has a direct impact upon legal interpretation at the Court, displacing traditional approaches (intentionalism, textualism) with a hermeneutic paradigm. It also creates challenges to the acceptance of the Court's case-law in the Member States, which seem to have been adequately tackled by the Court's idiosyncratic translation policy.
Jezik, književnost, moć / Language, Literature, Power, 2023
International instruments have long recognized the power of languages and established measures to mitigate and prevent the harm of language deprivation. Indeed, linguistic rights have increasingly been recognized as human rights. In a number of contexts, the effective realization of the most basic linguistic rights depends on the translation from a minority to a dominant language. Legal proceedings are an example, and the European Convention on Human Rights (Article 6) enshrines the right to interpretation and translation for those who do not speak or understand the language of the proceedings. However, monolingual ideologies still loom large on societies, resulting in a number of inadequacies that deprive the speakers of languages socially classified as minor of the necessary resources to enjoy their rights. This contribution will tackle two different contexts, Kosovo, and the Valencian country. Despite the legal obligation to avoid discrimination of speakers of non-dominant languages, judiciary practices discourage and endanger the maintenance and development of the regional and minority languages in both settings. This chapter addresses the lack of maturity of judiciary translation policies focusing on the accuracy, quality, and availability of translation, or lack thereof. In that way, we will show that from translator training to quality standards, societies' preparedness vis-à-vis their increasing diversity requires improvement.
Language as a Bridge Between Legal Cultures and Universal Justice: Linguae Alienae Novit Curia
Language and law are codes of communication across cultures as well as criteria to identify a specific society and differentiate it from others. In these two respects, language and law are inextricably tied by a synergistic symbiosis. Yet, language and law are also equally subject to the cruel aporia stemming from their unrealistic aspiration to universalism. Any academic language is a bridge built to overcome differences between cultures and borders. It is equally true that justice is part of humanity, a common heritage of mankind— irreducible to cultural relativism—and that each society is so specific that its legal system is not comparable or not even rigorously accessible to any other. The contradiction is deceptive in the same manner as is the opposition between natural law and positivism: for positivism must be anchored in natural law in order to respect human dignity and justice and natural law cannot exist a priori and may only be expressed in a given society by its peculiar legal culture and through its positive legal order.
Language Work at International Criminal Courts
International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2014
This article seeks to bring the often-invisible labor of interpreters and language assistants at the International Criminal Court and the ad hoc International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia into sharper focus. I highlight the far-reaching and extensive tasks of language workers, paying particular attention to their efforts to negotiate and mediate witnesses’ accounts of atrocity, including sexualized violence, inside and outside international courtrooms. In doing so, I illustrate how language work is central to the life of an international court and the vision of international criminal accountability. I argue that attention to the dynamics of language work provides opportunities to consider the project of international criminal justice in new and important ways, focusing on its practical work, its social encounters and its complex engagement with relations of difference.
Research Handbook on Jurilinguistics, 2023
This chapter examines the relationship between language and courts of justice. The discussion is set against a backdrop of fundamental texts which underscore the need for those appearing before courts to understand the proceedings, evidence and witnesses and conversely for these same persons to be understood by the courts. This involves judges and all officers of the court from both procedural and deontological perspectives. Various jurisdictional contexts are discussed with an emphasis on plurilingual, multicultural and plurijural settings. Examples are mainly drawn from Canada since it represents concomitant jurisdictions having these characteristics. Overlapping languages and jurisdictions represent a significant challenge in the equitable administration of justice. This overriding issue informs the discussion of problems encountered in similar contexts including conflicts, confusion and competing jurisdictions. Notwithstanding the discordant nature which often affects access to justice, harmonization is presented as a means to protect fundamental language rights. Key words: Deontology, harmonization of laws, language policy, language rights, linguistic competence, plurilingualism.
Forensic Research & Criminology International Journal, 2019
The main purpose of the language is to serve as means of linking individuals. However, interpreters and interpreters are required to deal with the specific characteristics of their field each day. Certainly, legal terminology and idiom impose the most troublesome features. This has become a big concern for all translators and interpreters who need to participate in legal systems at universal level, sometimes especially varied. The legal language based on ordinary language is semiotic and semi-autonomous. Also, the terminological density is high and most of the terms have different meanings depending on the legal field to which they belong. That’s why translation of legal texts and documents requires several complex skills. It is necessary not only to have a comprehensive knowledge of general linguistics, but also to understand the original including the vocabulary and content and knowledge of parallel legal systems. Of course, the experience is also positive to translate original do...
Multilingual Legal Discourse at the Court of Justice of the European Union
Comparative Legilinguistics, 2020
The European Union is an organisation that uses multiple languages, and its law is no exception. Dealing with over twenty authentic language versions of EU legislation appears to represent an additional challenge in the interpretation of the provisions of the common legal order. Unlike most other works, this article does not focus on the process of interpretation conducted by an adjudicating panel or an Advocate General, but rather on the statements of the parties involved in a dispute, or on the national courts that request a preliminary ruling when referring to multilingualism. This work is divided into two separate parts. Firstly, the author focuses on cases whereby a national court or a party invokes the multilingual character of EU law. The second part is dedicated to the issue of multilingualism in EU case law. Unlike EU law, the judgments of the Court of Justice, as well as the Advocate Generals’ opinions, are authentic in certain languages only. However, research has proven ...