Among translators there is often much debate as to how to appropriately translate the divisions of legislative texts. Under the entry for “section” the Alcaraz/Hughes dictionary* notes that “Acts (of the UK Parliament) are divided into sections, sub-sections and paragraphs,” indicating that “al hablar de las divisiones del texto de una ley ‘section’ equivale a ‘artículo’ y ‘article’ a ‘sección’… (aunque) en el Derecho comunitario redactado en inglés ‘article’ equivale a ‘artículo.’” In other respects, the U.S. Code** is divided into Titles, Parts, Chapters and Sections (the latter being conveyed by the symbol “§” rather than by the word “section”). And major pieces of Spanish legislation (Código Civil; Código Penal, etc.) are divided into Libros, Títulos, Capítulos and Artículos.

In view of the above and despite this diversity in terminology, following Alcaraz/Hughes (and other similar sources) many translators categorically insist that artículo should be translated as “section,” and “section” as artículo, except when the translation concerns EU law in which artículos are “articles.” But this seemingly simple rule has the potential for causing much confusion and, precisely for that reason, swimming against the tide and going against the grain, I admit that I generally ignore it. I prefer to render the Libros, Títulos, Capítulos and Artículos of Spanish laws literally as “Books,” “Titles,” “Chapters” and “Articles.” That way anyone seeking to consult the legal texts cited in a translation may at least have half a chance of actually locating the article (or “section”) in question in the original Spanish law.

*Enrique Alcaraz Varó and Brian Hughes. Diccionario de términos jurídicos ingles-español, Spanish-English. Barcelona: Ariel, 2005.

**United States Code (also called US Code or USC) is a consolidation and codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the United States. http://uscode.house.gov/

Many confusing terms in legal Spanish and legal English are simply legal synonyms that are not always clearly distinguishable, often making it necessary to learn how each one is used in a specific context or in set phrases (frases hechas). Some may be interchangeable; others are limited to use in specific contexts. Those highlighted in this blog are ones that I have seen confused in translation or that my students and lawyer clients have found most difficult to distinguish.

agente de seguros; corredor de seguros

Although sometimes confused, these expressions generally mirror the difference between the English terms “insurance agent” and “insurance broker.” In that regard, an agente de seguros (“insurance agent”) typically represents a single insurance company or agency (aseguradora), offering his customers the insurance policies (pólizas de seguro) marketed by that company. In contrast, a corredor de seguros (“insurance broker”) may offer his clients a series of products from different insurance companies. As underscored in Article 21.1 of Ley 26/2006 de mediación de seguros y reaseguros privados, corredores de seguros “realizan la actividad merantil de mediación de seguros…sin mantener vínculos contractuales que supongan afección con entidades aseguradoras.” In that regard, insurance brokers act as impartial mediators in insurance transactions: a diferencia del agente de seguros, el corredor es un mediador imparcial, no actúa en nombre y por cuenta de una entidad aseguradora, sino en beneficio de las dos partes contratantes.* Thus in this context, the expression correduría de seguros might be rendered as “insurance brokerage firm.”

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

antecedentes penales; antecedentes policiales

In English, expressions such as “criminal record” and “criminal history” denote a person’s “conviction record” or “record of criminal convictions,” which in Spanish are known as antecedentes penales. But antecedentes penales (conviction record, criminal history, criminal record) is sometimes confused with antecedentes policiales (“police record” or “arrest record”), which records arrests or other involvement with the police that may never have resulted in a criminal conviction.

In Spain this distinction is underscored by the fact that information concerning a person’s conviction record (antecedentes penales) and arrest record (antecedentes policiales) are kept in two separate databases. In that regard, it is often possible to achieve the expungement of a criminal record (cancelación de antecedentes penales) kept on file at the Ministry of Justice’s Registro Central de Penados y Rebeldes (similar to the centralized Criminal Records Bureau in England). In contrast, applications to expunge police records (cancelación de antecedentes policiales) held in the databases of both the Guardia Civil and Policía Nacional must be made through the Ministry of the Interior.

acto; acta—act

Acta is sometimes confused with acto and translated as “act.” These are multi-hued terms, but acto may often be rendered as “act,” while “act” is rarely an appropriate translation for acta.

Perhaps the most common meaning of acta is “record” in the sense of relación escrita de lo sucedido, tratado o acordado en una junta (DLE). In this context acta often denotes the “minutes of a meeting” (el acta de una reunion) and thus, for example, levantar acta de la Junta General is to “take the minutes of the shareholders meeting,” while libro de actas refers to a “minute(s) book.” In this context constar en acta refers to being “recorded in the minutes” (or, generally, to being “reflected on the record,”) while que conste en acta means “let the minutes (or) record reflect…”.

When acta has the additional meaning of certificación, testimonio, asiento o constancia oficial de un hecho (DLE), it may be more appropriately translated as “certificate,” “certification” or simply “report.” Thus acta de diputado is a Spanish congressional deputy’s “certificate of election,” while acta de concejal is the “certificate of election” of a city council member (concejal de Ayuntamiento). In this context acta notarial refers to a notary’s certification of a given event, such as an Acta notarial de la Junta General (the minutes of a shareholders meeting taken and certified by a notary public); Acta notarial de deslinde con citación de colindantes (notarial certification of property boundaries made in the presence of abutting property owners) or Acta notarial de subasta (which records an auction conducted and certified by a notary).

The expressions acta de nacimiento, acta de matrimonio and acta de defunción are often used to denote respectively a “birth certificate,” “marriage certificate” and “death certificate.” However, perhaps it should be noted that in Spain these documents are officially called “certificados.” Thus the documents actually issued by the Registro Civil (Spain’s “Bureau of Vital Statistics”) are certificados de nacimiento, certificados de matrimonio and certificados de defunción.

Acta constitutiva often describes a document evidencing the formation of a corporation or other business entity. In that sense, and in certain contexts, the expression may be rendered as “articles of incorporation” (US) or “memorandum of association” (UK), although in Spain in order to be valid an acta constitutiva must be reflected in a notarial instrument (escritura constitutiva) and subsequently recorded on the Registro Mercantil (Companies Register).

And, finally, in many contexts acta can likewise refer to a report issued by a government official. For example, in the context of law enforcement, acta may denote a report filed by a law enforcement officer or agent. In that regard acta de intervención de drogas might be described as a (police officer’s) “drug seizure report” and acta de intervención de armas as a “weapons seizure report.” In this context levantar acta does not refer to taking the minutes of a meeting, but rather to recording a procedure or event, as in la Policía procedió a levantar acta de intervención del arma, indicating that a weapons seizure report was duly filed.

As for acto, the term may often be rendered literally as “act,” as in acto de guerra (“act of war”); acto contrario a la ley (“unlawful act”) or acto delictivo (“criminal act”). But this is not always the case. For example, rather than the literal “act of service,” the expression morir en acto de servicio might be more appropriately rendered as “to die in the line of duty.”

In procedural contexts, acto procesal refers to an individual step or stage in a judicial proceeding. Acto de conciliación generally denotes a “settlement hearing” in which the parties to a dispute attempt to reach an agreement, while in the context of employer-employee conflicts, in Spain the expression refers to a mandatory extrajudicial settlement hearing conducted by a labor conciliation board (Servicio de Mediación, Arbitraje y Conciliación) before the matter may be heard by a labor court (Juzgado de lo Social). Likewise, in first instance labor proceedings, the actual trial is often referred to as an acto del juicio. Thus, in this context se celebró el acto del juicio simply means that “the trial was held.”

In the context of Spanish criminal law the expression actos preparatorios denotes the initial steps taken in the comission of a crime before it is actually executed (actividad orientada a facilitar la realización de un delito). And in inheritance law, the expression acto de última voluntad is a synonym for testamento (“will”), while in Spain all notarially-certified wills (testamentos otorgados ante notario) are recorded on a Register of Wills called Registro de Actos de Última Voluntad.

In other respects, in English “act” is likewise used with different meanings in several legal contexts. The term commonly denotes laws passed by a parliament (leyes parlamentarias) or other legislative assembly, as in “Acts of Parliament” or “Acts of Congress,” (leyes emanadas del Parlamento británico o del Congreso norteamericano). Thus, laws passed by the Spanish Parliament (Cortes Generales) may appropriately be called “acts,” as in, for example, Ley del Mercado de Valores (“Securities Market Act”); Ley de Marcas (“Trademark Act”); or Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil (“Civil Procedure Act”).

And the peculiar expression “acts of God” refers to natural disasters and events that may render contract performance impossible or impracticable, as opposed to “force majeure,” which also includes acts of man (strikes, war, etc.). In this sense “acts of God” is often equated with the Spanish concept of caso fortuito, while “force majeure” is most often rendered directly as fuerza mayor.

Many confusing terms in legal Spanish and legal English are simply legal synonyms that are not always clearly distinguishable, often making it necessary to learn how each one is used in a specific context or in set phrases (frases hechas). Some may be interchangeable; others are limited to use in specific contexts. Those highlighted in this blog are ones that I have seen confused in translation or that my students and lawyer clients have found most difficult to distinguish.

a título oneroso; a título gratuito; a título lucrativo

These expressions are sometimes confused in translation. Título oneroso is defined in the DLE as el que supone recíprocas prestaciones entre los que adquieren y transmiten, and in that regard a título oneroso has been appropriately translated as “for valuable consideration,” “for (or) against payment” or “subject to obligation.” A título gratuito is easily recognizable as the opposite of a título oneroso and accurately rendered as “free of charge,” “without consideration” or “subject to no obligation.” But the term lucrativo (DLE: que produce utilidad o ganancia) in a título lucrativo has often prompted translators to assume that, like a título oneroso, the expression means “for profit,” “for payment” or “for valuable consideration,” when actually the case is just the opposite. Título lucrativo is el que proviene de un acto de liberalidad, como la donación o el legado, sin conmutación recíproca* and, thus, a título lucrativo and a título gratuito are actually synonyms and may both be rendered as above (“free of charge,” “without valuable consideration” or “subject to no obligation”).

*Santiago Segura Munguía Lexicon (incompleto) etimológico y semántico del Latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas. Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, 2014, p. 332.

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.

As used in Spanish procedure, these five terms all denote instances in which a judge may refrain from hearing a case (se aparta del asunto). They are often confused in translation and are not interchangeable. Abstención and recusación describe instances in which a judge refrains (or is asked to refrain) from hearing a case due to a conflict of interest or for other legally-determined reasons. Inhibición, declinatoria and inhibitoria refer to circumstances in which a judge may refrain from hearing a case due to a lack of jurisdiction or improper venue.

A judge’s duty to withdraw from a case due to a conflict of interest or for other legally-established grounds (deber de abstención por causas establecidas legalmente) is the “duty to recuse himself.” When there are grounds for recusing themselves (causas de abstención), judges as well as court personnel, prosecutors and expert witnesses (funcionarios de la Administración de Justicia, fiscales y peritos) are obliged to recuse themselves (abstenerse) and withdraw from the case. If a judge does not recuse himself when deemed warranted, the parties and the public prosecutor (las partes y el Ministerio Fiscal) may likewise file a “motion to recuse” or “motion for recusal” (called incidente de recusación). Thus, in this context the verb abstenerse is “to recuse oneself”, while recusar is used when a third party recuses a judge or other official. In their noun forms abstención denotes a judge’s recusal of himself, while recusación is the recusal of a judge on the part of a third party.

In contrast to the above, even if he would incur no conflict of interest a judge may voluntarily “decline jurisdiction” (declararse incompetente, literally, “declare that he lacks jurisdiction”) if, according to the rules of procedure, he believes that another court has proper jurisdiction over the matter in dispute. In Spanish this “declining jurisdiction (in favor of another court)” is expressed as inhibirse (en favor de otro juzgado/tribunal), and in its noun form, inhibición denotes a judge’s voluntary “relinquishment of jurisdiction.”

In other respects, if a judge who lacks jurisdiction (juez incompetente) does not decline jurisdiction sua sponte (inhibirse de oficio), a party to the proceedings may challenge the court’s jurisdiction by filing one of two possible motions known respectively as declinatoria and inhibitoria. Both of these terms may be appropriately rendered as “motion challenging jurisdiction,” “motion to relinquish jurisdiction” or, under certain circumstances, “motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.” If the case specifically involves a lack of territorial jurisdiction (falta de competencia territorial), declinatoria and inhibitoria may also be translated as “motion alleging improper venue.”

The difference between declinatoria and inhibitoria lies with the court where the motion challenging jurisdiction is filed. Declinatoria is a motion filed with the court that allegedly lacks jurisdiction (tribunal incompetente), asking the judge to decline jurisdiction (inhibirse) in favor of another court. Inhibitoria is a motion filed with the court deemed to have jurisdiction or proper venue, asking that it declare itself the court of competent jurisdiction (que se declare competente) and to petition the court presently hearing the case to relinquish its jurisdiction (que se inhiba) and transfer the case to that court.

In summary, the above terms are all used in instances in which a judge may refrain from hearing a case. Abstención and recusación are used when the reasons for doing so involve a conflict of interest or other legal impediment, while inhibición, declinatoria and inhibitoria involve circumstances in which the court lacks jurisdiction to hear that case.