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Paying attention to detail

By John O 'Shea on October 18, 2024 in Greek language, Greek legal language and terminology, Legal terminology, Legal Translation, translation of legal documents, Μεταφράσεις νομικών κειμένων, Νομική μετάφραση

Today my timeline is filled with stories of the Greek Minister of Justice wanting to use AI-powered machine translation tools for interpreting in court settings and translating legal documents in various judicial proceedings. Settings where attention to detail should certainly matter.

The law is all about wielding words accurately (or deliberately wielding them in deliberately ambiguous ways). But let’s focus on the scenario where accuracy is what you’re after because you want / need to understand your rights and obligations in a legal setting; you want/need to make an important legal decision, etc.

In a post I did yesterday I stressed that the constancy of legal words is important; such constancy is important for a host of important reasons lawyers will immediately recognise, just some of which are legal certainty and the rule of law.

So I thought I’d run a little test connected to something I was working on.

I asked ChatGPT to translate a legal provision from Greek to English:

This is the output:

Sounds quite plausible and convincing.

But let’s not forget that MT/AI systems used in translation are known for creating the “illusion of fluidity”[1].

They’re also known for a whole series of other problems (omitting bits of the text, changing negative obligations into positive ones, inconsistent use of terms, made-up words, etc.) but they are not relevant to us today.

What’s relevant today is this “illusion of fluidity”. On first reading the translation seems to be ok. It seems right.

On closer reading, especially if you compare it with the original, you start to spot “issues”.

Are you even able to compare it to the original to be able to identify any issues?

In this particular case, the article comes from a convention that already exists in English so we can easily determine what is right and what’s not. The relevant article reads as follows:

Admittedly, the original and “translation” are very similar.

There are differences you can easily spot:

“Entitled to benefit” vs. “Entitled to avail himself of”:
“Willful misconduct on its part” vs. “His wilful misconduct”:
“According to the law of the court having jurisdiction over the matter” vs. “In accordance with the law of the court or tribunal seized of the case”:
“Considered equivalent to willful misconduct” vs. “Considered as equivalent to wilful misconduct”:
“Omission” vs. “Default”

Some are probably not that important (you get the general idea whether worded in one way or the other). Are you only after a general idea though? Or as a lawyer/client do you want to precisely understand what the text is saying?

Others change the legal meaning utterly.

It does get the specialist term “wilful misconduct” right. Other online tools get it wrong (deliberate poor management / deliberate mismanagement / wilful mismanagement).

Although I didn’t ask for it, ChatGPT added “its” “view” about the output generated:

Was it asked to provide simpler, more straightforward phrasing? We see a clear translational strategy here: opting for plainer language to make the text easier to read. Probably not a bad thing. Not the appropriate strategy though in this context.

It makes the bold assertion that both the original English text and its “output” are legally correct.

So I asked the obvious question:

ChatGPT generated this response:

If lawyers use precise wording “to avoid ambiguity” why does this system generate a “rough” translation?

So while I was focused on the details, and getting the translation “right”, our online tool was not.

ChatGPT provided an unofficial rendering of the provision. While the meaning may be “roughly the same”, it does not carry the same legal weight or and certainly doesn’t contain the precise wording as the official version.

Why does this matter?

Words matter in law … even translated words.

Established wording needs to be maintained.

Established wording is what lawyers will recognise and are used to working with.

Any deviation from established wording creates headaches.

Sticking to established wording saves users of the translation time, and avoids a lot of head-scratching and bewilderment of the type “so legally speaking what does that actually mean”?

Legal language is a “controlled” language. You cannot just use any old words you want.

Randomly generated “rough” translations introduce inefficiencies into lawyerly processes.

Randomly generated “rough” translations create false impressions of legal rules / legal obligations, especially if you aren’t an expert in that area of law; say, for example, you’re the client rather the lawyer.

Basically with tools like this you get “a translation”.

But …

Is it “the translation” you need?

Is it a translation you can use?

Is it a translation you can rely on in your lawyerly dealings?

Is it a translation you can trust?

It is a translation you can base decisions on?

Work with expert legal translators if you need your legal words to count.

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/375697263_La_TA_neuronale_et_ses_defis_compte_rendu_d’une_experience_pedagogique_en_traduction_economique

#AI #greeklaw #greeklawyers #legal translation #NMT #Riskmitigation

Court of the Ice Court – some musings on machine translation and legal texts

By John O 'Shea on December 8, 2023 in Greek legal language and terminology, Legal Translation, quality of legal translation, quality of translation, translation of legal documents, Μεταφράσεις νομικών κειμένων, Νομική μετάφραση

Does reputation matter?

What happens when a supreme court plugs MT into its website?

Check out the images below:

errors in translated name of supreme court

Remember we are talking about Greece’s most important court. Not just any old court.

Note that the court’s full and proper name already appears on its website in English.

It’s the MT plug-in that consistently gets it wrong.

The versions that appear in the reel are just some of the many different variants that it comes up with.

Words in law matter – even translated words

Critics will say, he’s going on again about MT, and that the translation is provided for information purposes only so there’s nothing to worry about.

Critics will also say that the court is offering the public a service, doing us a favour.

Are they?

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact I’d say it’s a disservice. To reiterate: Words in law matter – even translated words

If the name of the court (something simple and straightforward) can’t be got consistently right, what does that say about the rest of the content generated?

Can anyone reading the machine-generated output think this is useful or helpful to them in any way?

When is a “service” not a service?

Let’s delve a little deeper into the idea that this is a service.

If you boil things down, a service is something you seek out, you pay for (typically) and which adds value.

A service involves doing something for someone that is valued.

It involves applying skill, competence and expertise for the benefit of another.

Providing automatically-translated versions of court judgments, while well-intentioned, hardly meets those requirements.

Broader considerations

It also raises several important legal policy and access to justice considerations.

Even if such translations are labelled as “for information purposes only” (often disclaimers like that are missing) and are viewed by some as better than no translation at all, there are valid counterarguments to consider:

Legal and Ethical Responsibility: Courts have a responsibility to ensure that their communications are clear, accurate, and accessible in the language of the court.

Why should that be any different if the court opts to provide translations?

Offering substandard translations could be seen as neglecting this responsibility, potentially undermining public trust in the judicial system.

Reliance and Legal Consequences: Relying on machine translations for legal decision-making, even when they are marked as “for information purposes only,” poses significant risks, especially for those without access to professional translation services.

Court judgments, like other legal documents, are filled with complex terminology and nuanced language that machine translation often fails to accurately capture.

This can lead to misinterpretations about legal rights, obligations, and the judgment’s implications, resulting in incorrect decisions or unnecessary time and expense spent consulting legal advisors to correct misunderstandings.

Equal Access to Justice: Access to justice implies that everyone, regardless of language proficiency, should have equal access to legal information.

By providing low-quality translations, non-native speakers are disadvantaged, potentially violating the principle of equality before the law.

Recommendations

To address these issues, several recommendations could be considered:

Clear Disclaimers and Guidance: Provide clear disclaimers about the limitations of machine translations and guiding individuals to seek professional translation or legal advice for critical matters.

Improving Translation Quality: Invest in higher-quality translation services, potentially combining machine translation with human review and editing, to ensure accuracy.

Consult with experts in legal translation: Develop a policy for your legal translations that helps reduce your exposure to reputational risk

Legal translation machine translation translating court judgments

Reviewing a GR-EN/EN-GR legal glossary

By John O 'Shea on February 21, 2019 in Book Review, books on legal translation, English legal language and terminology, Greek legal language and terminology, Legal dictionaries, legal language, Legal terminology, Legal Translation, Μεταφράσεις νομικών κειμένων, Νομική μετάφραση

Ius et Translatum: English-Greek / Greek-English Legal Glossary – A review

Marta Chromá has written that “legal translation implies both a comparative study of different legal systems and an awareness of the problems created by the absence of equivalent concepts, legal institutions, terms and other linguistic units. As pointed out by Kischel … ‘the question in legal translation is not which translation is right, but more modestly, which one is less wrong’”[1].Continue Reading..

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Challenges in legal translation as seen by an international lawyer

By John O 'Shea on October 5, 2018 in books on legal translation, Dictionaries, English legal language and terminology, Greek legal language and terminology, Greek penal code, Hellenic Civil Code, Hellenic Code of Civil Procedure, Legal dictionaries, legal language, Legal linguistics, Legal Translation, translation of legal documents, Μεταφράσεις νομικών κειμένων, Νομική μετάφραση

Launching a new series of interviews with legal translators and experts in the field of legal translation, we have an interview with Eleni Nanaki, Attorney at Law LL.M – author and publisher of the bilingual legal glossaries in the ius et translatum series who talks to us about challenges in legal translation as seen by an international lawyer…Continue Reading..

Greek legal language Greek legal terminology Greek legal translation Hellenic Civil Code Hellenic Code of Civil Procedure Legal Dictionaries Legal translation translation of legal documents νομικές μεταφράσεις

Greek Penal Code: new translation

By John O 'Shea on July 24, 2017 in Greek legal language and terminology, Greek penal code, Legal Translation, Μεταφράσεις νομικών κειμένων, Legal Translation, Νομική μετάφραση

The Greek Penal Code

The esteemed Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law, in partnership with the German publisher Duncker & Humblot, has recently published a new English translation of the Greek Penal Code by Emmanouil Billis. Mr. Billis is a researcher on criminal law and procedure, comparative criminal law and the law of evidence and teaches at several prestigious law schools around Europe.

This new work “includes a systematic introduction to the basic characteristics and fundamental principles of criminal law and the Penal Code of Greece. As such, it is an indispensable resource for legal professionals, comparatists, and international scholars interested in the Greek criminal justice system”.

I would also add ‘legal translators’ to that list. As I pointed out in a recent blogpost, an essential tool for any professional legal translator is a translation of the key codes into his/her working languages. This can solve many terminological issues and promote consistency, while also aiding comprehension by the target audience.

The new book is the result of a project entitled “Translation of the Greek Penal Code into English”, which was run at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law. The contents of the book can be viewed here.

Interestingly, this is not the first time that the Greek Penal Code has been translated into English. The Code was previously translated in 1973 by N. Lolis, prefaced by an introduction to Greek criminal law by Giorgios Mangakis, and published as part of the American Series of Foreign Penal Codes. Times move on though. As the publisher’s blurb for the new book by Billis points out, criminal law is an area that evolves and develops over time and, “the individual definitions of criminal offences, [have] been widely amended several times. Efforts have always been made to adapt the law to modern socio-ethical, political, economic, and international developments”. So the new translation is a welcome addition to the tools at the legal translator’s disposal.

Greek legal translation Legal translation νομικές μεταφράσεις Legal translation ποινικός κώδικας

THE CONSEQUENCES OF NOT TRANSLATING LEGAL CONTENT

By John O 'Shea on September 26, 2016 in Greek legal language and terminology, Legal Translation, translation of legal documents

There can be dire consequences from not translating legal content.

The Siemens bribery trial was characterised by many this past summer as a trial ‘lost in translation’. For those who don’t remember or know the topic, this case is about public contract No. 8002 which the German company Siemens secured and signed in 1997 with the Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation (OTE) which was then publicly owned in order to digitise its network. The investigation of the case was launched by Greek judicial authorities about a decade ago and, as a result, 64 suspects were brought to trial. Amongst them were 13 German nationals, executives of the German company, as well as a French-Swiss banker. According to the indictment, the defendants allegedly bribed Greek politicians and public officials to secure the above mentioned public contract.

On the 12th of July the three-member Court of Appeals in Athens suspended proceedings in the Siemens scandal case for an indefinite period, because the subpoena and the bill of indictment hadn’t been translated into the defendants’ native language. The Court accepted the plea filed by the non-Greek defendants and suspended proceedings until the translation could be completed, even though this suspension could lead to the crimes being prescribed under the statute of limitations. Of course, that is the only decision the Court could have reached, since the right to interpretation and translation for those who do not speak or understand the language of the proceedings is enshrined in Article 6 of the ECHR, as interpreted in the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights and is further specified by the Directive 2010/64/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council. According to the Directive the Member States should ensure that there is free and adequate linguistic assistance, allowing suspected or accused persons who do not speak or understand the language of the criminal proceedings fully to exercise their right of defence and safeguarding the fairness of the proceedings. Article 3 of the Directive also makes it quite clear that, “Safeguarding the fairness of the proceedings requires that essential documents, or at least the relevant passages of such documents, be translated for the benefit of suspected or accused persons in accordance with this Directive. Certain documents should always be considered essential for that purpose and should therefore be translated, such as any decision depriving a person of his liberty, any charge or indictment, and any judgment.”

So quite rightly not translating legal content essential for the case was characterised as an even bigger scandal than the Siemens scandal. The Translation Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to which the translation of those documents was assigned, initially stated that all the documents sent to it by the Prosecution Service at the Court of Appeals were translated in time, while the Prosecution Service denied that that was so. After a number of further denials of each side’s claims by the other side, as well as disciplinary actions against State Prosecutors, the Translation Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs delivered the translation of the bill of indictment in the German language on the 15th of September.

But what can we learn from this case about the consequences of not translating legal content?

What happened confirms that legal translation is still considered as an unnecessary and trivial service in Greece, even by some legal professionals themselves. It is worth noting that in the preparatory stage of the proceedings a State Prosecutor didn’t grant the request for the translation of the bill of indictment made by the non-Greek nationals, on the grounds that the defendants had already provided a statement of defence and had been apprised of the charge sheet, therefore the translation of the bill of indictment was not necessary. The content of legal documents though is what determines the outcome of a court case. In criminal matters, by issuing a bill of indictment the Judicial Council is in effect deciding to bring the defendant to trial, if it finds that there is sufficient evidence to support the charges against him. The content of that document will shape the defendant’s defence and will determine a number of other rights that he has under Greek law, such as =his right to appeal the decision of the Judicial Council. Let’s hope that the Siemens story doesn’t need to be repeated, before we can realise how important the translation of legal documents is, both in and out of the courtroom, and what consequences not translating legal content can have.

The services of legal translators should be engaged from the outset in legal cases where it is anticipated that there will be a need for legal content to be translated, in order for delays of this kind to be avoided. Legal translators are not only valuable, but also necessary aides in cases where there are foreign elements. So choose your translators from the outset and keep them updated about any developments or changes in your case. How much faster would the Siemens case have progressed from one stage to the next, if the services of legal translators had been engaged from the beginning and if the translation of every essential legal document had been secured right after it was drafted?

Assign the translation of your legal documents to specialised translators, who know the legal system of the country in which the documents are being drafted, as well as the legal system of the country into whose language they are translating. Let’s not forget that the essential aim of the translation in the Siemens case was to provide the foreign defendants with the opportunity to exercise their right to defend themselves. No matter how good the German language skills of the translators are, if they are not familiar with the legal system of Greece, they won’t be able to grasp the meaning of the terms found in legal documents. No matter how well they know the Greek legal system, if they are not familiar with German legal terminology as well, they won’t be able to choose the most suitable term, in order to fulfil the aim of the translation for its final recipient.

Besides the Siemens case, there are also other cases where not translating legal content had adverse consequences and often incurred extra costs. A recent excellent example we have already highlighted was the WhatsApp

Sources: http://www.cnn.gr/news/ellada/story/42369/areios-pagos-peitharxiki-dioxi-kata-trion-eisaggeleon-gia-tin-ypothesi-siemens

By Eva Angelopoulou

Eva is an English / German to Greek legal translator. She holds a Master’s in Law and a Postgraduate Degree in Specialised Translation. She worked as a legal practitioner in Greece for 7 years and has been bringing her expertise and knowledge to the translation industry for the last 3 years. She is an SDL-certified translator and is obsessed with languages. Besides working with language, she also really enjoys travelling. She has lived in Greece, Germany and Belgium and is now based in Ireland.

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CULTURAL INCONSISTENCIES IN LEGAL TRANSLATION – Part 2

By John O 'Shea on July 21, 2016 in English legal language and terminology, Greek legal language and terminology, legal language, Legal terminology, Legal Translation, translation of legal documents

In one of our previous posts we talked about the cultural inconsistencies in legal translation that often come up and specifically about inconsistencies in the realia. In this post, we are going to talk about the ways in which the legal translator can tackle these inconsistencies.

We gave an example using the term “fiduciary” and its Greek translation, but we concluded that there isn’t an equivalent term that has the exact same meaning and an identical content in the Greek legal system. What needs to be stressed here is the fact that the legal translator is able to reach this conclusion only if he is familiar with the law of both the legal systems involved: the legal system from which the source text comes and the legal system from which the target text comes. Familiarity with the first will enable the translator to have a clear grasp of the meaning, the content and the function of the concept, the term or the realia that he needs to translate. Familiarity with the second will enable him to look for the respective concept, term or realia in the target language.

As in the example that we used in our previous post, in the case where there isn’t an equivalent concept, term or realia, the translator should embrace the interpretative approach, aiming at the same time to ensure that the final recipient of the text will be able to understand it. The target text will be used in the context of a different legal system by people familiar only with their own legal system. The translator’s aim should be to clearly present the foreign legal system, without altering the structure and the legal effect of the text and of course without adding to or subtracting from the amount of information that the final recipient will draw from his translated text.

Hard? Yes. Impossible? No.

In any case, the legal translator should contact his client and advise him about the implications that arise from the inconsistencies of the two cultures involved, as well as about the ways in which he is planning to tackle those cultural inconsistencies in legal translation.

In our example I chose to translate the term “fiduciary” as “διαχειριστής αλλότριας περιουσίας” (administrator of another’s affairs), drawing my inspiration from the concept of “management of another’s affairs/voluntary agency” (διοίκηση αλλοτρίων) in Article 730 of the Hellenic Civil Code. The reason that the English term couldn’t have been translated as “διοικητής αλλοτρίων” (manager of another’s affairs/voluntary agent) is because there is a crucial difference between those two concepts: the agent mentioned in Article 730 of the Greek Civil Code manages the affairs of another person, but acts without authority, while the fiduciary acts under a mandate.

Just like any translator, the legal translator should also cultivate his multiculturalism, as this is a necessary professional tool. Since any form of cross-language communication is also cross-cultural communication (Vlachopoulos, p. 36) and every legal system is created within a specific culture, it is more than necessary for the legal translator to be aware of and be exposed to his own, as well as the foreign culture. This is the very heart of the role of the professional legal translator, as he is the person responsible for transferring the message and the content of the legal text from one culture to the other and finding solutions to the legal inconsistencies in his legal translation.

According to Vlachopoulos, who in turn refers to the research of Maddux & Galinsky in the field of business administration (Vlachopoulos, p. 37), simply knowing the language, as a sum of finite linguistic units and syntactical mechanisms, without being aware of the cultural elements reflected in the usage of a specific word or in the usage of a specific syntactical mechanism and without being conscious of the significance these elements bear in the foreign culture, dooms every effort of cross-cultural communication to failure. In other words, lack of awareness of the cultural parameters defeats creative understanding and leads to a linear and uncritical transfer of structures of the source language to the target language. It leads, above all, to an uncritical transfer of the thought structures of the source culture to the target culture. Vlachopoulos then he goes on to say that it is necessary for the translator to be familiar with the cultures with which he is working, so that, firstly, he can possess the knowledge and the experience that will support his understanding of the target culture and secondly, to be able to assess the acceptance criteria and in this way be able to converge to the highest possible extent with the communication standards that he is required to respect.

In the context of cross-cultural communication, therefore, the skilled legal translator should possess an awareness of the legal culture of both countries and keep himself constantly informed about new legislation, new case-law and the changes taking place in his own, as well as in the foreign legal system.

By Eva Angelopoulou

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CULTURAL INCONSISTENCIES IN LEGAL TRANSLATION

By John O 'Shea on April 20, 2016 in Greek language, Greek legal language and terminology, Hellenic Civil Code, Legal terminology, Legal Translation

A legal text always reflects a specific national legal system, in the sense that it is based on the laws, rules and regulations of that legal system. Any national legal system is, in turn, culture-based, since it is created in accordance with the needs of a specific culture and aims to ensure harmonious co-existence between the members of that culture. In this sense, law is an integral component of culture. Since no two cultures are identical, no national legal system can be identical to another, even if both of them belong to the same legal family. The logical consequence of this simple fact, and one that is of course anticipated by professional legal translators, is that difficulties and challenges are bound to come up while transferring a legal text’s message from one national legal system to another, due to the differences and non-equivalences between the respective legal systems. These differences and inconsistencies are, of course, also reflected in the legal language, which is the means of expressing the national law.

The differences therefore between the source culture and the target culture create inconsistencies in legal texts. There are different kinds of inconsistencies, but in this post we are going to talk about what is perhaps the most common kind of inconsistency that can be found in legal texts, one that arises due to the non-existence of a culture’s realia (institutions, concepts and systems) in another culture. This type of inconsistency is called factual inconsistency. I wonder if there is a professional legal translator who hasn’t encountered terms, phrases or concepts in legal texts that refer to realia that exist in the source culture, while no equivalent realia exist in the target culture. An example of a factual inconsistency that I recently encountered while translating an English legal text into Greek is the term “fiduciary”. This general term, that can be found in Common Law systems, refers to the person that somebody entrusted with the management of their affairs. The individual who acts as fiduciary is someone who undertakes to act for the benefit of and on behalf of the person who trusted them in relation to a particular affair. In bilingual English to Greek legal dictionaries the term fiduciary is usually translated as θεματοφύλακας (thematofylakas). The term θεματοφύλακας (thematofylakas) however refers to the contract of deposit under Article 822 of the Greek Civil Code, according to which “the depositary takes delivery from another person of a moveable thing with a view to keeping it subject to the undertaking of restitution upon demand”. It doesn’t take long for a professional legal translator, who is familiar with the Greek law of obligations, to realise not only that the term fiduciary cannot be translated as θεματοφύλακας (thematofylakas) in Greek, since a fiduciary relationship does not include only guarding a moveable thing, but also that there isn’t really an equivalent term or concept in the Greek legal system with exactly the same meaning and an identical content.

The next question that logically comes up is how should a legal translator tackle these inconsistencies?

We will try and give an answer to this question in a future post. In the meantime, you can read more about inconsistencies in legal texts and the legal translator’s approach in this article by Stefanos Vlachopoulos in Greek or in this one by Radegundis Stolze in English.

by Eva Angelopoulou

Greek legal language Greek legal terminology Greek legal translation Legal language Legal translation

EXPERTS TALK ABOUT LEGAL TRANSLATION (12)

By John O 'Shea on March 7, 2016 in English legal language and terminology, Greek language, Greek legal language and terminology, Legal terminology, Legal Translation, Legal Translation Quotes

Translating the workings of a civil law system into English (common law) terminology can be extremely difficult, as all those who have ever attempted it will know. The reason for the complexity is simple; translating from one system to another system is far from straightforward. When, for example a Dutch lawyer has to explain his legal system to a common law lawyer, it is not simply a matter of replacing Dutch words with English words. The Dutch system is not a carbon copy of the English system, which means that there will not always be equivalent English terminology at hand for translation purposes. In order to use English legal terminology correctly and effectively, the practitioner must not only be familiar with his own legal system, but also have a basic grasp of the structure of the common law system.

Source: Helen Gubby, English legal terminology: Legal concepts in language (Boom Juridische Studieboeken)

by Eva Angelopoulou

Greek legal translation Legal translation

E-GOVERNMENT GLOSSARY

By John O 'Shea on October 29, 2015 in Dictionaries, English legal language and terminology, Greek legal language and terminology, Legal dictionaries, Legal Translation

The University of the Aegean’s Department of Information & Communication Systems Engineering has recently released a GR-EN / EN-GR glossary of e-Government terms.

To view it click here: http://icsdweb.aegean.gr/project/lexiko/

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