Month: March 2019

Translating Spanish Criminal Procedure: actor civil

rebeccajowers Español jurídico

CRIMINAL L

In Spanish criminal procedure actor civil refers to a party to a criminal proceeding who is seeking compensation for damages for civil liability arising out of the criminal act being tried. In Anglo-American jurisdictions claims for compensation for damages arising from criminal offenses are typically filed in a separate civil suit and, thus, the role of the actor civil in the Spanish criminal process may often be unclear to English-speaking audiences. In brief, in Spain claims for compensation for damages arising during the commission of a crime (reclamación de la responsabilidad civil derivada de la comisión de un delito) are usually tried simultaneously with the prosecution of criminal defendants during criminal proceedings. Actor civil designates the party who enters an appearance in a criminal proceeding to file a claim for damages in what amounts to a civil liability action conducted simultaneously with (or within) a criminal procecution.

Thus, civil and criminal liability may be determined in the same proceeding if the actor civil enters an appearance and asks to be acknowledged as a party to the criminal proceedings as a plaintiff claiming damages based on the same incident for which a conviction for criminal liability is being sought (la parte solicita que se la tenga por personada en el procedimiento en calidad de actora civil). And in perhaps most cases the victim and and person seeking civil redress are the same.

Actor civil has often been rendered literally as “civil plaintiff” or “civil claimant,” translations that perhaps fail to reflect the fact that the expression actually denotes a party to a criminal proceeding. And, indeed, since this “civil action within a criminal trial” concept will perhaps be foreign to English-speaking audiences, actor civil may require a more detailed descriptive translation such as “party claiming civil damages in a criminal proceeding.” In other respects, the civil claim heard during a criminal trial is often referred to as a proceso civil acumulado, precisely because it is, in effect, a civil action joined or consolidated with (within) a criminal procecution.

Read more here: Víctor Moreno Catena and Valentín Cortés Domínguez. “El llamado ‘actor civil’ en el proceso penal.” Derecho Procesal Penal. Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch, 2005, p. 125 ff.

 

 

False Friends 101: trimestre; trimester

rebeccajowers False Friends

False Friends 101

These two terms probably belong in the “False Friends 101” category, but are nevertheless sometimes confused in translation. Both trimestre and “trimester” refer to a period of three months. In English “trimester” is perhaps most often used to refer to stages of human gestation: “the first trimester of pregnancy” (el primer trimestre del embarazo). In addition, many US universities divide the academic year into three trimesters (fall, winter and spring), each having a duration of approximately 12 weeks.

However, in legal, business or accounting contexts a three-month period is called a “quarter” (i.e., la cuarta parte de un año). Thus, in these contexts trimestre must be rendered as “quarter” rather than as “trimester.” To cite a few simple examples, the accounting year (ejercicio contable) is divided into “quarters,” (trimestres); VAT (IVA) is paid “quarterly” (trimestralmente), and business profits are typically announced in a “quarterly earnings report” (informe trimestral de resultados).

A tribunal isn’t always a court

rebeccajowers Mistranslations?

Tribunal not always court

Tribunal is often mistranslated due to the assumption that the term always designates a court. But tribunales are not necessarily part of the ordinary court system, and the term may be used to designate administrative “boards” or “tribunals” that review the decisions of governmental agencies (órganos adminstrativos). A prime example is Spain’s Tribunal Económico-Administrativo, which is often mistranslated literally as “Economic-Administrative Court.” But rather than courts, as part of the Ministerio de Economía y Hacienda, tribunales económico-administrativos are administrative tribunals that provide a procedure for challenging decisions of the Spanish tax authorities and, as such, they are perhaps more accurately described as “tax appeal boards.”

In that regard, an expression such as reclamación económico-administrativa describes an “(administrative) appeal of a decision of the tax authorities.” Once this administrative remedy has been exhausted (agotada la vía administrativa), appeals from the decisions of tax authorities may be subsequently taken to the administrative courts (tribunales contencioso-administrativos), which are indeed a part of the ordinary court system (tribunales ordinarios). But a tribunal económico-administrativo cannot be accurately described as a “court.”

In English “tribunal” often likewise designates an administrative review board rather than a court, especially when referring to those that decide tax or employment benefit claims. Examples in the US include the New York City Tax Appeals Tribunal, Michigan Tax Tribunal, Wisconsin Unemployment Insurance Appeal Tribunal or Tennessee Employment Security Appeals Tribunal.

Read more here