Month: December 2019

Español jurídico: Translating indefensión

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This term is often rendered literally as “defenselessness,” a word that certainly exists in English, obviously describing the state of being utterly defenseless. But “defenselessness” is perhaps an all-too-literal rendering for indefensión, which in addition to sounding somewhat unnatural, doesn’t really convey the meaning of the term in legal contexts.

Article 24.1 of the Spanish Constitution provides that todas las personas tienen derecho a obtener la tutela efectiva de los jueces y tribunales en el ejercicio de sus derechos e intereses legítimos, sin que, en ningún caso, pueda producirse indefensión. And the Spanish Constitutional Court has interpreted the term broadly as encompassing all of the Article 24 constitutional rights including el derecho al Juez ordinario predeterminado por la ley, a la defensa y a la asistencia de letrado, a ser informados de la acusación formulada contra ellos, a un proceso público sin dilaciones indebidas y con todas las garantías, a utilizar los medios de prueba pertinentes para su defensa, a no declarar contra sí mismos, a no confesarse culpables y a la presunción de inocencia.

Thus, indefensión denotes any circumstance that deprives a party of the possibility of defending himself at any time and in any way during the judicial process. Thus, rather than “defenselessness,” indefensión may perhaps better be rendered as “denial of a means of defense,” “denial of justice,” or in view of the Article 24 guarantees involved, “denial of due process.”

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False Friends: When información isn’t simply “information”

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There are several instances in legal Spanish in which “information” may not be the most appropriate translation for información. In the context of securities law, información privilegiada refers to “insider information,” while uso de información privilegiada denotes “insider trading (or) dealing” and normas sobre información privilegiada are “insider trading rules.”

In the context of corporate law, obligación (or) deber de información is not merely an “obligation to provide information” as the expression has sometimes been translated literally, but rather refers to “disclosure requirements” imposed upon publicly-traded companies pursuant to Spain’s Ley del Mercado de Valores (“Securities Market Act”).

And in the context of administrative law and urban planning, trámite de información pública refers to a legal requirement that information concerning certain public works projects be made available to the public to enable private citizens to present their opinions or objections (called alegaciones) before the project is implemented. In the UK this type of trámite de información pública is known as a “public consultation.” In that regard, the seemingly cryptic expression sacar el proyecto a información pública merely means “to submit the project to public consultation.”

Español jurídico: Translating causante

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Legal Spanish for Translators

In the context of inheritance law (Derecho de sucesiones) causante has a particular meaning that is sometimes overlooked in translation. In its broadest sense (persona de quien otro deriva su derecho), causante is often rendered as “predecessor in title,” a translation that may certainly be appropriate in other circumstances. But in the context of the law of succession, causante more specifically denotes the “deceased” or “decedent.”

Causante has likewise been confused with testador (persona que hace testamento) and translated as “testator,” when the terms are clearly not the same. A causante was obviously a testator if he made a will before his death, but a testador is not a causante until he dies (giving causa or origin to the right to inherit his estate.) In this sense, causante es la persona que por su fallecimiento origina automáticamente la apertura de la sucesión. And of course a causante (“decedent,” “deceased”) was not a testator if he failed to leave a will and, thus, died intestate (murió intestado). In addition to causante, other terms sometimes used to denote a “decedent” or “deceased” include difunto, finado and the Latin expression de cuius.

(Definitions are from the Diccionario Jurídico Colex, Madrid, 2003)

Expressing Spanish Civil Law Concepts in Common Law Terms: What is prescripción ?

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Simply put, prescripción refers to the effect of the lapse of time on creating or destroying rights (Black’s Law Dictionary). Prescripción extintiva is the extinguishment of rights or obligations due to the passage of time when certain legal requisites are met (extinción de derechos o obligaciones por el transcurso del tiempo y con los requisitos previstos en la ley). A common example is prescripción de acciones o delitos, the idea that the law bars civil claims or criminal prosecutions after a specified period. This is known in Anglo-American legal terms as a “statute of limitations” or “limitation act,” a law that establishes time periods in which actions must be brought or crimes prosecuted. After that period has elapsed, it is said that the right in question has become “time-barred” or “statute-barred,” or that “the statute of limitations (on that action, prosecution, etc.) has run,” (or in British English, “has expired”), all of which simply mean el derecho ha prescrito. Related expressions include:

  • plazo de prescripción—limitation period (statutory period after which a action, claim, prosecution, etc. cannot be brought)
  • comienzo del curso de la prescripción; inicio del cómputo del plazo de prescripción—moment at which the statute of limitations/limitation period begins to run
  • excepción de prescripción—statute of limitations defense (defense in civil proceedings that the action or claim is statute or time-barred)
  • interrupción de la prescripción—tolling of the statute of limitations (interruption of the running of a statute of limitations)

In contrast to prescripción extintiva, prescripción adquisitiva (also called usucapión) denotes the creation or acquisition of rights in property by the passage of time. Indeed, prescripción adquisitiva is a means of acquiring ownership or other property rights through open, notorious, unopposed and continuous possession of the property for a legally-established uninterrupted period of time (posesión pública, pacífica, continuada e ininterrumpida durante el plazo posesorio). In common law terms prescripción adquisitiva is tantamount to “adverse possesion,” a method of acquiring title by actual possession of another’s real property that is open, hostile, exclusive, continuous and adverse to the claim of the owner, and which may give rise to title if carried out for a specific statutory period (Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law).

False Friends Fridays: imposición and “imposition”

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In legal contexts imposición (and imponer) can rarely be rendered literally as “imposition” (or “to impose”). In banking law imposición refers to a “deposit,” as in fecha de imposición (“deposit date”); imposición a plazo fijo (“time deposit”); imposición minima (“minimum deposit”) or “imposición en efectivo (“cash deposit”). In the context of tax law imposición denotes “taxation:” imposición directa (“direct taxation”); imposición indirecta (“indirect taxation”); doble imposición (“double taxation”) or convenio de doble imposición (“double tax treaty,” “treaty for the avoidance of double taxation”).

In procedural law imposición de costas is a court’s “award of costs.” Se imponen a la parte demandada las costas indicates that the “defendant is ordered to pay (the plaintiff’s/claimant’s) costs,” usually expressed in English from the perspective of the successful party, in this case as “plaintiff/claimant is awarded costs.” And in the context of criminal law, imposición de la pena refers in general to “sentencing,” as in imponer pena de prisión (“to sentence to prision,” “to impose a prison sentence”); imponer pena de multa (“to fine,” “to impose a fine”) or imponer la pena de privación del derecho de conducir (“to suspend/ revoke a driver’s license,” “to disqualify from driving”).

False Friends Fridays: adhesión; adhesion (and the verbs adherir; adhere)

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Adhesión and “adhesion” may be cognates in an expression such as “adhesion contract” (contrato de adhesión). But in the sense of adhesión a un tratado, adhesión is more appropriately rendered as “accession,” as in acuerdo de adhesión (“accession agreement”) or la adhesión de España a la CEE (“Spain’s accession to the EEC”). In this case the appropriate verbs are adherir and “accede:” Estados miembros que se han adherido a la Unión Europea (“Member States that have acceded to the European Union”).

In other respects, in the language of court decisions adherirse is used to denote a judge’s “joining” another’s opinion: adherirse al voto particular disidente/discrepante o concurrente (“to join a dissenting or concurring opinion”). Thus, for example, voto particular concurrente que formula el Magistrado don Luis López Guerra y al que se adhiere el Magistrado don Tomás S. Vives Antón refers to a “concurring opinion filed by Judge Luis López Guerra in which Judge Tomás S. Vives Antón joined.” Likewise, in English an expression such as “Justice White, with whom Justice Blackmun and Justice Stevens join, dissenting” denotes a voto particular disidente (or) discrepante formulado por el Magistrado White, al que se adhieren los Magistrados Blackmun y Stevens.

In an additional context, in Spain’s former Civil Procedure Act (Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil de 1881) the successful party to a lawsuit could join the losing party’s appeal (called adherirse a la apelación) to challenge some aspect of the judgment being contested. In the present Civil Procedure Act (Ley 1/2000) adhesión a la apelación has been replaced by the concept of impugnación del recurso. In that regard, once the appellant (apelante) has filed his appeal, the appellee or respondent (apelado) may file a brief opposing the appeal (escrito de oposición al recurso) or, if warranted, a brief challenging specific aspects of the appeal that he deems prejudicial to his interests (escrito de impugnación de la resolución apelada en lo que le resulte desfavorable).

Confusing Terms: certificación; certificado; partida

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Confusing Terms2

These three terms are all commonly used in Spain to denote “certificates” issued by the Registro Civil (“Civil Register,” “Bureau of Vital Statistics,” etc.). Thus, for example, a “birth certificate” may be variously referred to as a certificación de nacimiento, certificado de nacimiento and partida de nacimiento.

The term actually used in the Reglamento de la Ley del Registro Civil is certificación and, for example, a birth certificate is entitled “Certificación de Inscripción de Nacimiento.” Nevertheless, this and other certificates (de matrimonio, de defunción) are also called certificados in many official documents and on Spanish government websites.

Likewise, the expressions partida de nacimiento (or de matrimonio, de defunción) are widely used, albeit unofficially, to designate respectively a “birth certificate,” “marriage certificate” and “death certificate.” In that regard, partida originally denoted the entry on a church’s parish register of major life events (births, marriages and deaths) and, by extension, is often used informally to refer to data recorded on the Registro Civil. This is evident in the DLE’s definition of partida: registro o asiento de bautismo, confirmación, matrimonio o entierro, que se escribe en los libros de las parroquias o del registro civil.