Author: rebeccajowers

False Friends: recuento ; recount

rebeccajowers False Friends
 

These terms are certainly look-alikes, but as used in electoral law (Derecho electoral) recuento and “recount” may or not be cognates, depending on the context. In English “vote recount” refers exclusively to a second or repeat tabulation of votes when the accuracy of the initial vote tally is questioned. The most famous case of an election recount in recent history is undoubtedly the vote recount conducted in Florida during the 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. In Spanish, however, recuento may denote both the initial tallying of votes or, as in English, a second vote count. In that regard, the DRAE defines recontar as contar o volver a contar el número de cosas. Thus recuento de votos may be a synonym of escrutinio de votos denoting the counting of votes for the first time, as in Los colegios electorales han cerrado y ha comenzado el recuento de votos (“The polling stations have closed and the counting of votes has commenced”). But, as in English, recuento de votos may also refer to a “recount,” i.e., to a second or subsequent canvassing of votes. This was implicit, for example, in news articles published in Spain concerning the 2000 US election recount, such as one entitled La victoria de Bush depende del recuento en Florida.

The same may apply in other contexts. Recuento físico de existencias denotes a “physical inventory,” “inventory count” or “physical stock-taking,” and may refer to an initial inventory or stock count (its usual meaning) or a second or subsequent one. In contrast, in English the expression “inventory (or) stock recount” always denotes a second or subsequent review of stock after an initial inventory has been conducted.

In other respects, in the context of corrections law (Derecho penitenciario) recuento has a totally different meaning. In that regard, expressions such as recuento de internos or recuento de reclusos refer to an “inmate headcount” or “inmate rollcall.”

 

Legal English for Spanish-speakers: Nouns with Postpositive Adjectives

rebeccajowers Legal English for Spanish-speakers

When Spanish-speakers learn English they are generally taught that, unlike in Spanish, adjectives are placed before the noun (the “red house,” not the “house red;” the “green car,” not the “car green”). But in legal usage (and often in everyday English too!) there are a series of nouns followed by what are often termed “postpositive (or) postnominal adjectives.” Here are a few examples with (possible) Spanish renderings:

accounts payable—acreedores; cuentas por pagar
accounts receivable—deudores; cuentas por cobrar
body corporate—entidad con personalidad jurídica (corporation; legal entity)
condition precedent—condición suspensiva
condition subsequent—condición resolutoria
corporation de facto—sociedad irregular
corporation de jure—sociedad regular
consul general—consul general
court martial—tribunal militar; consejo de guerra
fee simple absolute—dominio pleno
heir apparent—heredero presunto
law merchant—Derecho mercantil
letters patent—patente
letters rogatory—comisión rogatoria
notary public—notario público
secretary general—secretario general
sum certain—precio cierto

To form the plural of these expressions it is generally the noun that is made plural, while the adjective remains unchanged (bodies corporate; conditions precedent/subsequent; consuls general; courts martial; heirs apparent; notaries public; secretaries general; sums certain, etc.)

(For a detailed explanation and many more examples see Bryan Garner, “Garner’s Dictionary of Legal Usage,” Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 692.)

False Friends: puro y simple ; “pure and simple”

rebeccajowers False Friends
 

 Puro y simple isn’t so pure and simple!

In legal contexts puro/a (y simple) cannot generally be translated literally as “pure (and simple),” since the expression often means “unconditional.” Obligaciones puras (“unconditional obligations”) are those that are not subject to any condition or term (no sujetas a ningún tipo de condición, plazo o término) and, thus, payment or performance of those obligations may be demanded at any time. Donación pura y simple denotes an “unconditional gift,” in contrast to a donación modal (or)  donación onerosa upon which the donor has imposed a condition or encumbrance.

With regard to negotiable instruments (títulos valores), checks and bills of exchange (cheques y letras de cambio) must contain an “unconditional order to pay a fixed amount of money.” In Spanish this is expressed as un mandato puro y simple de pagar una suma determinada. And in the context of the law of succession (Derecho de sucesiones) heredero puro y simple denotes an heir who accepts his inheritance unconditionally (known as aceptación pura y simple), without exercising the option to limit his liability for the debts of the inherited estate to the value of the inheritance (called beneficio de inventario).

Terminology Sources: puntoycoma

rebeccajowers Terminology Sources

In this first entry on Spanish-English legal terminology resources I would like to highlight puntoycoma: Boletín de los traductores españoles de las instituciones de la Unión Europea. Published quarterly since 1991, in each issue legal and financial translators will inevitably find useful terminology on a wide variety of topics that are in no way limited to EU affairs. Of special interest are the extensive bilingual vocabularies published in the following issues:

Glosario de bolsa (16)

Glosario de la política comunitaria de competencia (80)

Glosario de términos y expresiones sobre la crisis económica (130, 131)

Glosario de terminología financiera (15)

Glosario de inovación y transferencia de tecnología (77)

Glosario de la propiedad industrial (61, 67)

http://ec.europa.eu/translation/spanish/magazine/es_magazine_about_es.htm

 

 

Mistranslations (?) of abuso de derecho

rebeccajowers Mistranslations?

Is this really a mistranslation_

abuso de derecho; abuse of process

Abuso de derecho has sometimes been inappropriately interpreted as referring to procedural abuse and thus translated as “abuse of process,” “malicious prosecution,” or “frivolous (or) vexatious litigation.” But as used in Spain (and in other Spanish-speaking jurisdictions) abuso de derecho is actually a much broader concept, being defined in Article 7.2 of the Código Civil as any acto u omisión que sobrepase manifiestamente los límites normales del ejercicio de un derecho, con daño para tercero. This Civil Code premise is often referred to in English as the “doctrine of abuse of rights,” defined as “the concept that the malicious or antisocial exercise of otherwise legitimate rights can give rise to civil liability.”* Thus, abuso de derecho is not “abuse of process,” and may be more accurately rendered in English as “abuse of rights,” or if a more precise, descriptive translation is warranted, “the abusive exercise of legitimate rights in detriment to the interests of a third party.”

In contrast, the concepts of “abuse of process,” “malicious prosecution,” or “frivolous (or) vexatious litigation” are perhaps more closely reflected in Spanish procedural terminology in expressions such as mala fe procesal, temeridad procesal or, depending on the context, even fraude procesal. In summary, abuso de derecho is a broad term denoting the abuse of a legitimate right in detriment to another person, while expressions such as “abuse of process,” “malicious prosecution,” and “frivolous (or) vexatious litigation” are limited to procedural contexts and describe abuses of the judicial process for ulterior or collateral purposes.

 

*“The doctrine of abuse of rights, found in various guises in Civil Law jurisdictions, refers to the concept that the malicious or antisocial exercise of otherwise legitimate rights can give rise to civil liability.” (From the Abstract to the article “The Doctrine of Abuse of Rights: Perspective from a Mixed Jurisdiction,” by Elspeth Reid, Electronic Journal of Comparative Law, Vol. 8.3, October, 2004)

http://www.ejcl.org/83/abs83-2.html

 

 

 

Capsule Vocabularies: Trademarks

rebeccajowers Capsule vocabularies
LeGal English_ _Brand_ & _Tracemark_(1)
ES-EN legal translators (and lawyers and professors) often require a minimum basic vocabulary in a specific area of law, something that they will be hard pressed to find searching word-by-word in a dictionary. (In this case, the “problem” with dictionaries is that they are in alphabetical order.) Blog entries labeled “Capsule Vocabularies” will feature some of the basic terminology lists developed for use by my students of legal English that I hope may also be of interest to translator and interpreter colleagues and other legal professionals.

Marcas (Trademarks)

• Derecho de marcas; Derecho marcario—trademark law
• marca—trademark; trade mark (UK)
• marca denominativa—word mark
• marca gráfica—device/design mark
• marca mixta—composite mark
• marca publicitaria—slogan mark
• marca de fantasía—fanciful mark
• marca tridimensional—three-dimensional mark
• marca sonora—sound mark
• marca de garantía—certification mark
• marca colectiva—collective mark
• marca de servicio—service mark
• marca notoria—well-known mark (known to consumers in the sector)
• marca renombrada—renowned mark (known to the public in general)
• marca anterior—earlier mark
• marca prioritaria—prior mark
• marcas confrontadas—conflicting marks
• marcas idénticas—identical marks
• marcas incompatibles/confundibles/que inducen a confusión—confusingly similar marks
• marca descriptiva—descriptive mark
• marca consolidada/inatacable—incontestable mark
• marca multiclase—multi-class mark
• marca defensiva—defensive mark; defensive registration

 

Source: Rebecca Jowers. Léxico temático de terminología jurídica español-inglés. Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch, 2015, pp. 925-926.

 

Mistranslations (?) of Derecho hipotecario

rebeccajowers Mistranslations?

Is this really a mistranslation_

Derecho hipotecario; Ley hipotecaria; Distrito Hipotecario

Translators unfamiliar with Spanish law often automatically assume that the adjectives hipotecario and hipotecaria refer exclusively to mortgages (hipotecas). Thus there is an assumption that Derecho hipotecario is limited to “mortgage law” and that Ley hipotecaria refers to legislation specifically governing mortgages, and these mistakes have found their way into several bilingual legal dictionaries.

Although traditionally called Derecho hipotecario, in Spain this branch of law actually concerns the registration of rights in real property on the Land Register (Registro de la Propiedad). The fact that Derecho hipotecario is a misnomer (and that Derecho inmobiliario registral is a more accurate term) has been recognized in multiple Spanish legal sources. For example, Luis Ribó Durán in his Diccionario de Derecho (Bosch, 2005) explains that

“Derecho hipotecario es la parte del Derecho que estudia la adquisición, transmisión, modificación y extinción de los derechos sobre bienes inmuebles en cuanto éstos se reflejan en el Registro de la Propiedad. (…) La denominación Derecho inmobiliario registral, posiblemente la más adecuada, ha sido muchas veces postergada ante la de Derecho hipotecario, de más rancia tradición al enlazar con el nombre de la ley especial que, antes de la promulgación del vigente Código Civil, desmarcó de éste la materia inmobiliaria registral…”.

Likewise, in its article on “Derecho inmobiliario registral,” the Gran Enciclopedia Rialp (1991) notes that

“…generalmente, entre los autores españoles, se llama ‘Derecho hipotecario,’ denominación que obedece al título de la ley que regula la materia, la Ley Hipotecaria. Es claro que el nombre de la ley no responde a su contenido, pues en ella se regula, además de la hipoteca, todo referente al Registro de la Propiedad.”

Thus, rendering Derecho hipotecario as “mortgage law” is misleading, while a translation that accurately reflects the true content of this legal discipline in Spain might be “Law of Land (or) Real Estate Registration” or “Land (or) Real Estate Registration Law,” etc. (The Registro de la Propiedad for England and Wales is called the “Land Registry.” There is no centralized land register for real property in the US where real estate is recorded in the state where it is located.)

Similarly, Ley Hipotecaria really cannot be appropriately translated as “Mortgage Act,” as it is often rendered. Although, as indicated above, part of the Ley Hipotecaria (93 articles) does indeed deal with mortgages per se, the true subject of the law (329 articles) is actually land registration, setting forth how the property registry (Registro de la Propiedad) is to be organized and stipulating the duties of property registrars (Registradores de la Propiedad). Thus, in this case Ley Hipotecaria might be more properly translated as “Land Registration Act” or “(Real) Property Registration Act,” while there may be other instances in which a law might be accurately described as a “mortgage act,” such as the Ley del Mercado Hipotecario (“Mortgage Market Act”).

In other respects, the expression Distrito Hipotecario is sometimes rendered as “Mortgage District,” but actually refers to a “land (or) property tax district.” And Oficina Liquidadora del Distrito Hipotecario denotes a “district land (or) property tax office” in charge of collecting transfer taxes and stamp duties levied on the transfer of real property and other transactions (impuestos sobre transmisiones patrimoniales y actos jurídicos documentados), as well as inheritance and gift taxes (impuestos sobre sucesiones y donaciones).

Confusing Terms: Who’s the victim? (víctima; agraviado; ofendido; perjudicado)

rebeccajowers Confusing Terms

 

In English the person against whom a criminal offense is perpetrated is the “victim.” But ES-EN translators are often puzzled to find that the seemingly equivalent term víctima is not always the one used in Spain in the Criminal Code (Código Penal) or in the Criminal Procedure Act (Ley de Enjuiciamiento Criminal). In effect, although víctima is perhaps the most prevalent term, references to el agraviado por el delito and especially to el ofendido y perjudicado por el delito are frequent in both texts, and sometimes appear together in the same article. Article 771.1 of the LeCrim reads, “(la Policía Judicial) cumplirá con los deberes de información a las víctimas que prevé la legislación vigente. En particular, informará al ofendido y al perjudicado por el delito de forma escrita de los derechos que les asisten…” Ofendido, perjudicado and víctima likewise appear together in Article 776.1.

Although there is often a good bit of imprecision and overlapping in their use, ofendido (and often agraviado) generally denote the direct victim of a crime, defined as the person whose legally-protected interest has been injured by the offense, the titular del bien jurídico protegido lesionado por el delito and, thus, el titular de la acción penal. In contrast, where a distinction is made, perjudicado generally denotes the person who has sustained an injury arising from the offense (que sufre económicamente o moralmente las consequencias del delito) and who is susceptible to being compensated with an award of civil damages, i.e., the sujeto pasivo del daño civil indemnizable or titular de la acción civil. This is the actor civil in criminal proceedings, the party seeking an award of damages based on civil liability incurred during the commission of an offense (reclamación de la responsabilidad civil derivada de la comisión de un delito). And, indeed, the ofendido (or) agraviado (the direct victim of the offense) and the perjudicado (the person who may claim damages from civil liability arising from the offense) are usually, but not necessarily, the same person. Víctima may refer to both.

As Professor Martín Ríos has noted, la coincidencia en una misma persona de las cualidades de ofendido y perjudicado no solo es posible, sino que constituye el supuesto habitual a que da lugar la comisión de un delito o falta. Pese a hacer referencia a realidades diferenciables, para designar ambas posiciones hablamos (en un sentido criminológico) de ‘víctima.’ Dentro de tal concepto incluimos, por tanto, al sujeto pasivo del delito (el ofendido) como a quien directamente sufre, en su esfera patrimonial, los efectos del mismo (el perjudicado).”*

And, as a simple example to clarify the ofendido-perjudicado concept, in el delito de homicidio the ofendido is the person who dies as a consequence of the offense, while his surviving spouse and children would be the perjudicados.

In summary, the lexical (and legal) complexities of these terms are undoubtedly oversimplified in this explanation. And unless a distinction must be made in translation between the victim of a crime and the person claiming civil damages as a result of that offense, agraviado, ofendido, víctima and, often, perjudicado may usually be rendered simply as “victim.” In that regard it is perhaps best to avoid the confusing literal renderings that sometimes appear in translation (“injured party,” “the offended,” “the wronged party,” “the aggrieved,” etc.), since they may imply that the person in question is someone other than the victim of the crime.

*Mª del Pilar Martín Ríos. El ejercicio de la acción civil en el proceso penal: una aproximación victimólogica. (Madrid: La Ley, 2007), p. 42.

Capsule Vocabularies: auditorías

rebeccajowers Capsule vocabularies
ES-EN legal translators (and lawyers and professors) often require a minimum basic vocabulary in a specific area of law, something that they will be hard pressed to find searching word-by-word in a dictionary. (In this case, the “problem” with dictionaries is that they are in alphabetical order.) Blog entries labeled “Capsule Vocabularies” will feature some of the basic terminology lists developed for my students of legal English that I hope may also be of interest to translator and interpreter colleagues and other legal professionals.

Auditorías (Audits)

• Normas Internacionales de Auditoría (NIA)—International Standards on Auditing (ISA)
• sociedad de auditoría—audit firm; auditing company
• comité de auditoría—audit committee
• contrato de auditoría; carta de encargo; carta-propuesta—audit contract
• honorarios del auditor—auditor’s fees
• auditoría de cuentas; censura de cuentas—auditing of accounts
• auditoría de las cuentas anuales—audit of annual accounts/financial statements
• auditoría annual—annual audit
• auditoría especial—special audit
• auditor; censor—auditor
• censor jurado de cuentas—certified auditor
• auditor individual—individual auditor
• auditor independiente—independent auditor
• auditor interno—internal auditor
• documentación de auditoría (papeles de trabajo)—audit documentation (working papers)
• imagen fiel—true and fair view; fair presentation
• imagen fiel del patrimonio y de la situación financiera de la empresa auditada—true and fair view of the audited company’s assets and financial position
• marco de información financiera applicable—applicable financial reporting framework
• marco de imagen fiel—fair presentation framework
• marco de cumplimiento—compliance framework
• evidencia de auditoría—audit evidence
• riesgo de auditoría—audit risk
• riesgo inherente—inherent risk
• riesgo de control—control risk
• riesgo de detección—detection risk
• riesgo de incorrección—misstatement risk; risk of misstatement
• juicio professional—profesional judgment
• escepticismo professional—professional skepcticism
• seguridad razonable—reasonable assurance
• informe de auditoría—audit report
• opinión de los auditores—auditors’ opinion
• opinión favorable—unqualified opinion; clean opinion
• opinión con salvedades—qualified opinion
• opinión desfavorable—adverse opinion
• opinion denegada—disclaimer of opinion

Español Jurídico: Ley penal en blanco

rebeccajowers Español jurídico

CRIMINAL L

Ley penal en blanco is one of those impossible-to-translate expressions that is not a patently civil law term but rather, like much of Spanish criminal law terminology, was adopted from the German. The first problem is to understand the concept, and then to find an appropriate rendering. As defined in Aranzadi’s Diccionario Jurídico,* “las leyes o normas penales en blanco se caracterizan porque en ellas la disposición penal se limita a fijar taxativamente la consecuencia jurídica, esto es, la pena, pero no define exhaustivamente el supuesto de hecho del delito, sino que remite a otra norma del Derecho Civil, Mercantil, Administrativo, Social o Comunitario, de suerte que es esta última la que fija o describe la conducta sancionada por la norma penal.”

Thus, simply stated, a ley penal en blanco is a penal law that provides the penalty for a criminal offense, while the offense itself is defined in another law or regulation. Article 316 of the Spanish Criminal Code provides a clear example of a ley penal en blanco:

Los que con infracción de las normas de prevención de riesgos laborales y estando legalmente obligados, no faciliten los medios necesarios para que los trabajadores desempeñen su actividad con las medidas de seguridad e higiene adecuadas, de forma que pongan así en peligro grave su vida, salud o integridad física, serán castigados con las penas de prisión de seis meses a tres años y multa de seis a doce meses.

Here the pena (sentence) is clearly stipulated (prisión de seis meses a tres años y multa de seis a doce meses), but the tipo penal (definition of the unlawful act) is left “blank” to be “filled in” by another law or regulation, in this case, in the normas de prevención de riesgos.

The original German term is Blankettstrafgesetz:

La expresión “ley penal en blanco” (que corresponde con la traducción del término “Blanketstrafgesetz”) se debe a Binding. Este autor la propuso por primera vez en 1872… para hacer referencia a un particular grupo de normas que recogía el Código Penal en las que, aunque se preveía la sanción a aplicar, se asignaba a supuestos de infracción de disposiciones establecidas por autoridades administrativas.**

In his “Principles of German Criminal Law,” Michael Bohlander defines leyes en blanco (Blankettgesetze, or Blankettnorms) as acts of Parliament “that do not contain (all) the elements of the offense, but refer to other legislation for that purpose.”*** But Bohlander translates these terms as “blanket acts,” a translation that I believe those unfamiliar with the concept might misunderstand as referring to a “blanket (or) umbrella law” designed to address a broad range of offenses. Likewise, the literal rendering “criminal law in blank” appearing in several sources obviously fails to convey the true meaning of the expression.

Since there is really no common law counterpart for ley (or) norma penal en blanco, I am offering below three possible “definitional translations,” adapted from explanations appearing in several Spanish criminal law sources:

• criminal norm/law that defines the punishment but that refers to another non-penal law to define the offense (ley penal que establece la pena pero que remite a otra ley no penal para definir el delito)

• criminal norm in which the criminal conduct is defined by reference to another non-penal norm (norma penal cuyo supuesto de hecho se configure por remisión de una norma de carácter no penal)

• norm that contains the punishment but does not describe the prohibited or sanctioned conduct (norma que contiene la sanción pero no describe las acciones prohibidas o sancionadas)

*Juan Manuel Fernández Martínez, Coord. Diccionario Jurídico. Cizur Menor (Navarra): Thompson-Aranzadi, 2004.

**Antonio Doval País. Posibilidades y límites para la formulación de las normas penales. El caso de las leyes en blanco. Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch, 1999, p. 95.

***Michael Bohlander. Principles of German Criminal Law. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2009, p. 11.

For further reading:

Francisco Muñoz Conde and Mercedes García Arán. Derecho Penal-Parte General. Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch, 1998 (there are later editions), pp. 40-43; 122-126.

José Luis Díez Ripollés. Derecho Penal Español-Parte General en Esquemas. Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch, 2007, pp. 57-58; 66.