Legal translators don’t just translate.
We build trust: for #lawyers, between legal systems, and across linguistic divides.
Most people think translation is about finding the right word.
In legal translation, it’s about safeguarding outcomes.
A lawyer’s client sees the final document, not the hours of legal-linguistic due diligence behind it.
They don’t know that the translator flagged an outdated reference, proposed a clearer clause, or traced a procedural citation to an older version of the law.
But they do know the document makes sense.
They do feel confident in the advice they’re given.
And that’s the point.
Legal translators don’t just render text. We reduce risk.
We don’t just aim for equivalence.
When a Greek lawyer hands over a translated writ or contract to an English-speaking client, the client reads it and says: “This makes sense. I understand my position.”
That’s not a linguistic win.
That’s a trust win.
And it’s hard-won.
Through careful attention, rigorous checking, and strategic choices about what needs clarification, and what needs footnoting or commenting on.
That’s what legal translators do when we’re doing our job well.
In a world increasingly flooded with AI-generated content, have we forgotten how to read critically?
A thought-provoking piece I read recently entitled “Promptism and the Forgotten Art of Source Criticism in the Age of AI” raises exactly that point.
It made me think about legal translation.
And how what it says about source criticism applies so powerfully to what we do as legal translators.
You’ve probably seen it too.
Legal texts fed through AI tools that come out sounding smooth, plausible, grammatically correct.
But as we all know (or should know ) legal translation isn’t about sounding smooth.
It’s about being right and precise.
The article talks about the illusion of fluency; how something that reads well can still be deeply flawed.
And in legal settings, flawed translations mean flawed understanding.
And flawed understanding can lead to real-world consequences.
When working on legal texts, especially ones involving rights, obligations, or procedural safeguards, “close enough” is not close enough.
This is where source criticism (the habit of actually going back to check, verify, and compare with the authoritative original) becomes a professional duty.
Not just a nice-to-have.
If you’ve ever run an AI-generated translation through its paces, you’ll know it rarely holds up under scrutiny.
Subtle distinctions missed.
References mistranslated.
Wording altered in a way that changes legal effect.
It doesn’t matter how confident or elegant the output appears. If it isn’t anchored in legal reality, it’s unusable.
And more than unusable, it’s potentially harmful.
That’s why I keep championing the role of expert human translators.
Because we legal translators don’t just “translate”. We verify, interrogate, and challenge the text.
We bring legal knowledge to the task.
We bring linguistic precision.
We do the checking so our clients don’t have to.
The message of that Promptism article is clear: don’t lose the habit of critical reading.
Don’t stop questioning what you’re shown.
In legal translation, that habit can and does make all the difference.
If you need Greek to English legal translations that go beyond the surface and actually hold up in practice, get in touch with us at #Jurtrans. Because close enough simply isn’t good enough.
A question to Greek lawyers? What do you do when your translator flags an error in the source text?
Legal translators aren’t just wordsmiths. They’re close readers of your texts; often the first to spot a citation that doesn’t add up, a provision that’s outdated, or a phrase that could cause confusion in another jurisdiction.
When your translator flags something, take it seriously.
Why? Because once a translated legal document leaves your desk, it speaks on your behalf: to foreign clients, counsel, counterparties, courts, and authorities.
An uncorrected mistake could damage your credibility or create legal uncertainty.
Here’s what to do:
Read the comments from your translator.
Don’t skim past translator’s notes and comments. Treat them as red flags, not afterthoughts.
Verify the issues flagged.
Go back to your source text and check. Is there really a citation error, factual slip, or ambiguity?
Amend where possible.
If the document is in draft, revise it. If it’s final, advise the translator how you want the matter handled.
Always respond to the translator.
Let them know how you want to handle the issue.
Don’t leave questions hanging.
Build the habit. Treat the translation process as an aspect of legal document review, not something that happens after the “real” work is done.
Listening to your translator is all about collaboration and about protecting your client, your reputation, and the legal effectiveness of your work.
How to handle errors flagged up by your legal translator
Can you base a legal argument on something you can’t fully understand?
Can you rely on something you know may be inaccurate? Can a court decide a case not fully understanding the evidence or knowing it may be inaccurate?
That’s the quiet conundrum courts are beginning to face with machine translation.
As legal systems increasingly encounter foreign-language evidence, and as machine translation tools creep into everyday use, we’re starting to see these tools referenced in English judgments. The attitudes of the courts are revealing, and at times, contradictory.
I reviewed recent case law* and one overarching pattern emerges: courts are pragmatic. They’ll accept a machine translation when nothing else is available. But they are also cautious, sometimes sceptical, yet rarely confident in what the technology produces.
In Apparel Fzco v Iqbal, Armeniakou v Thomson, and Eli Lilly v Genentech, the courts accepted machine-translated documents without much critique. These cases read as if the translation simply passed under the radar. A quiet admission into evidence without comment or concern. Not an endorsement, but certainly not a red flag either.
Contrast that with Joyvio Group v Quiroga Moreno and Abbott v Dexcom. Here, the courts acknowledged that MT has some utility but were careful to limit how much weight they gave it. Machine translation might help orient the reader. But when it comes to deciding rights, obligations, or liabilities, it’s background noise. Certainly not the main soundtrack.
And then there are cases like Secretary of State v LJ Fairburn & Son Ltd and El-Tawil v Comptroller General of Patents, where the courts do raise eyebrows.
“Somewhat erratic”
“Odd English”
“Not easy to follow”
“Doubtful translation“
These aren’t throwaway remarks.
They are judicial shorthand for “this isn’t reliable”, yet the judgments often stop there.
The concern is voiced, the translation doubted, but rarely interrogated in depth.
What emerges is a telling judicial inconsistency. Some judges treat MT as good enough. Others barely trust it to parse a sentence. And across the board, there is little examination of how translations are produced, who produces them, and how meaning might shift in the process.
This mirrors the findings Juliette Scott and I outlined in “Translation in Libel Cases: Reputations at Stake!”**.
Judicial approaches to translation vary not just across jurisdictions, but within them. Some courts scrutinise every nuance. Others assume equivalence where none exists.
The role of the translator is often invisible. The status of machine-generated text, undefined.
That matters.
Because legal texts are not just linguistic artefacts. They carry implications; they have legal effects. Meaning isn’t surface-level.
Machine systems don’t understand legal context. They don’t parse ambiguity. They don’t recognise subtext or intent.
They pattern-match.
And when the outcome of a case hinges on meaning, that’s not enough.
If judges are flagging the limitations of MT, lawyers should take note.
So what does this mean for legal practice?
Don’t walk into court with a rough idea of what the document says. Don’t submit a translation just because it’s fast, or free. Don’t assume the judge will catch and correct an error in a language they don’t speak.
Because in law, words aren’t just words. They’re tools. And sometimes, they’re weapons.
I think the overall message that emerges from these cases can be summarised as machine translation is merely a tool that is sometimes useful.
It might help orient the reader. It might support a rough understanding. But for anything beyond that, particularly where legal rights hang in the balance, it is no substitute for a trained legal translator.
Or to put it more bluntly: if your client’s liberty, liability, or livelihood is on the line, do you really want the judge in your case relying on a “somewhat erratic” translation?
No one reads a legal document as closely as a legal translator. Machines don’t come close.
If you’re litigating cross-border matters, or dealing with foreign judgments, pleadings, or scientific evidence, don’t settle for a “rough idea.” Insist on a version that is clear, legally accurate, and fit for purpose. Get the right translation. Get the right translator.
If you need a legal document in the Greek< >English combination feel free to reach out to us at JURTRANS TRANSLATIONS LTD.
No one reads a legal text as closely as a legal translator in their effort to understand what it says and means, and to render that appropriately in another language.
While modern tech certainly has its uses, this is not one of them.
Today’s musings on legal translation were inspired by the sort of research I regularly need to do to be able to translate properly and accurately, so that the client gets a text that makes sense and is useable; an impeccable legal translation they can trust and rely on.
One particular sentence in the document I was translating referred to a specific article of the Greek code of civil procedure. It was cited as support for a set of procedural steps that were taken in proceedings (X did Y pursuant to Article Z). But something didn’t feel right. When I actually consulted Article Z of that code, I noticed that it was talking about something completely different.
My initial thought was it was just another of the classic mistakes one finds in Greek legal documents. That it was a case of the drafting lawyer having mistyped the article number. That is the typical sort of thing I flag to my lawyer clients.
So I searched the nearby articles of the code to see if they were relevant. Nope.
I did a keyword search. Nothing relevant in the code.
Then it occurred to me what was going on. The reference to that article was not to the current version of the code but one of the older versions.
In recent years there has been a flurry of overhauls and major amendments to Greece’s core codes, including the code of civil procedure. Sometimes the pace of change in the codes can be dizzying.
Consulting a past version of the code I was able to identify what the sentence was actually referring to. Of course, having worked on the translations of all the major codes in recent years as part of the Lex Graeca project made the task of identifying the past version easier.
To ensure the end user of the translation fully understood what was being said in that section of the text, I proposed that the lawyer redraft the Greek text to make it clear that it was the older version of the code being referred to, not the current one. He agreed.
Happy drafting lawyer. Happy end user. Potential confusion avoided.
At Jurtrans, we do the head-scratching so you don’t have to. We offer legal translations that flag potential problems in the source text and offer work-arounds and solutions to ensure effective legal communication. We offer services that MT and AI can’t. We care about getting your legal communication right.
If you’re a Greek lawyer and want a diligently-researched, carefully-crafted English translation of a Greek legal text, get in touch with us at info@jurtrans.com.
Many lawyers seem to think they can just press a button and technology will miraculously produce a useable translation they can present to clients to aid understanding of legal provisions or help those clients grasp what their rights and obligations are.
Much has been written about how writing in simpler language makes it easier for the machine to “translate”.
Except, of course, legal language is hardly ever simple and straightforward. Words and concepts are connected to other provisions and concepts in a complicated web of meaning. And that meaning needs to come across in the translated version of the legal text. Unsurprisingly, machines fail a lot in relation to this.
But what if there are mistakes in the legal text?
Machines can’t identify mistakes. If the person reading the translated version doesn’t know the language the original document was written in, and isn’t expert in the relevant area of law, they may not be able to spot those issues. The lawyer who pressed the “translate” button may not be able to spot them either.
And talking of lawyers and law professionals not spotting things, I wanted to share some thoughts on errors in legal documents (be they contracts, articles of associations, pleadings, judgments, legislation, etc.), which are the sort of things we at Jurtrans typically translate.
Errors in Greek legal documents are very common.
Much more common than you’d imagine.
In 2024 we translated 946 Greek legal documents into English.
An astonishing 95% of them contained one or more errors of various types.
That’s a lot of errors.
And a lot of comments from us pointing out the errors and oversights in the Greek texts.
Getting an error-free legal text for translation from Greek to English really is the exception rather than the rule in our experience.
And many of those errors can have significant consequences if they aren’t spotted in time. More of which at another time …
To repeat the oft-heard phrase “no one reads a legal document as carefully as a legal translator”. Machines certainly don’t have that capability because they simply match patterns, they don’t understand meaning.
So what sort of errors do we typically see?
Incomplete citations. For example, Article 95 is mentioned. But Article 95 of what? Of the contract the phrase appears in? Of the governing law? Of some other piece of legislation? With our deep knowledge of Greek law we can often tell which piece of legislation is meant and can add a comment about that.
Incorrect citations. For example, the wrong governing legislation is cited, or the wrong article and paragraph number are cited, or the wrong judgment is cited.
Related to this, we frequently see legislation being cited that is no longer in force at the time the document was drafted. This happens a lot in company law texts when the old regime under Law 2190/1920 is cited despite the legislation being overhauled by Law 4548/2018.
Similarly, we often encounter numbers being reversed. Greek legislation has a numerical citation so (made up example) Law 1959/2008 could be cited mistakenly as Law 1995/2008.
Inconsistent paragraph / section numbering. Greek has its own unique numbering system based on Greek letters and characters. We often see lists omitting ‘στ’ (equivalent of ‘f) and going straight from ‘ε΄ το ‘ζ. Τhat can throw off the numbering scheme. It’s often the case that ‘στ’ is omitted at one location in the document but included in other locations. Likewise, we often see paragraph numbering jumping from say paragraph 3 to paragraph 5 with no paragraph 4 in between.
Another frequent problem is the drafting lawyer/judge mixes up who the parties are and what roles they hold. Plaintiff/claimant is confused with defendant at some point in the text, for example.
We often encounter sections of garbled text because of a copy-paste issue meaning part of a sentence is missing. The grammar / syntax is often messed up in this section of the text making it impossible to deduce what the correct intended meaning is.
Often there is a lack of logical flow in the argumentation or there are contradictions between what was said at the start of the text and what is said further down.
“Things left dangling” are quite frequent. For example a sentence may set up the logic of a disjunctive list (a or b) we only the information relating to ‘a’ is provided.
Subject-verb disagreement. Single subjects matched with plural verbs, or vice versa.
Single and plural nouns confused. Although the text refers to one buyer elsewhere it refers to several buyers.
Mistakes of fact, like saying such and such a place is in England when it is in Scotland.
Conflicting information in different parts of the text (for example a debt of a specific amount is mentioned at the start, but a higher / lower / other amount is mentioned further down)
Incorrect references to foreign legal documents.
On a related point, spelling mistakes in the English names of foreign legal acts or in foreign abbreviations, for example the General Rules for International Factoring being abbreviated as GRIP in the Greek text instead of GRIF.
Forgetting to consistently use “capitalised terms” that have been assigned a special meaning in the document.
Introducing capitalised terms that are nowhere defined in the document. For example in a lease defining the “Leased Property” in detail but then going on to call it the “Building”.
Related to the foregoing point, elegant variation in terms used, so an agreement is called just that (an “agreement”) in one paragraph, but is called a “contract” in another.
Use of incorrect terminology for the area of law or use of outdated terms that come from an older version of the legislation.
Ambiguously worded phrases where two or more possible intended meanings co-exist
Numbers written out in full do not match the numbers presented arithmetically.
Given our long years of professional experience in translating Greek legal texts into English, we can easily spot these errors and save egg on our clients’ faces. Machine translation and generative AI systems certainly can’t do that.
Following on from yesterday’s musings on the utility of technological tools for legal translation purposes, let’s hear today what a lecturer in family law has to say about the topic:
“Regarding … improving family experiences, numerous AI-based tools are designed to support clients or lawyers, but their accuracy strongly depends on the case details.
No doubt automatised legal translators [sic] have rapidly progressed in the last few years, yet their accuracy compared to the sworn translator can still be questioned. …
Yet, they tend to fall short in complicated matters, particularly highly contextual sentences.
Additionally, as a scholar deeply immersed in Japanese family law, I can assess that the existing translators [sic] can mislead about the true sense of the content of the legal norms or documents and, thus, can be treated only as a support tool. …
Family law requires an exact understanding of the analysed text, including legal terms and human emotions that can be expressed in various ways, such as non-verbal messages. …
Given the noticeable number of international couples communicating with each other or their children in different languages, detailed knowledge about the family and personal situation cannot depend on automatic translation, which cannot grasp the significance of words and non-verbal messages at this stage.
Conversely, clients seeking legal information through automated translations could find incomplete or false information.
Thus, despite the rapid pace of development of AI-based legal translations, family lawyers should consider employing reasoning based on them as high-risk assumptions, mainly due to the inability to grasp subtleties and cultural nuances.
This raises an essential question – is AI-based translation useful at all if a specialised human translator will probably always be more accurate than machines and one step ahead, despite the slower work?”
Piegzik, M.A., “The Adoption of Artificial Intelligence in Family Law – Brand New or Well-known Idea?” Folia Iuridica Universitatis Wratislaviensis 2024 vol. 13 (2), 26–51
I’d argue these considerations do not apply just to family law but to all branches of law.
The language of the law is hard. Translating the language of the law is hard.
It still confounds technology. There are no simple push-of-a-button solutions.
If you need help seeing through the hype and want someone to tell you the truth about what language technologies can and cannot do when it comes to translating legal documents from Greek to English and vice versa, book a 30-minute call here: https://lnkd.in/edMThP3c
I’m all for technology. I use it all day, every day. But every technology has its limits (and its limitations).
Don’t we all wish that legal language was simple and straightforward and that you could just click a button and you’d have a clear understanding of what a foreign legal text actually says?
Then you’d know what your rights or obligations are.
You’d be able to converse intelligently with your legal counsel or your lawyer could explain things to you in terms you understand.
You’d be able to plan your next steps.
You’d know where you stand.
Nonetheless, 9 years after NMT went mainstream, and 2+ years after genAI was launched, legal language continues to confound technology.
By way of illustration, let’s take a sentence that would be straightforward for any Greek lawyer or experienced professional legal translator working in the Greek-English combination:
The Greek source text
The sentence may be straightforward. But behind it is someone who needs to show they have not been accused of something serious. The words may look innocent on the screen but the real-life implications are huge.
It’s vital to get the translation right.
You don’t want just any old translation.
You want an impeccable translation you can rely on.
How the tech performed
Google Translate gives us this piece of incomprehensible garbage. Remember Google Translate has been working on fine-tuning its neural machine translation engines for 9 years now.
The “English” translation according to Google Translate
– This is neither fluent nor accurate.
– Is employee even correct here? Is the text not actually referring to a “civil servant”?
– What does “occupied the service” even mean?
– The employee occupied the service “due to disciplinary or criminal offences”. What does that even mean?
– Holiday? αργία can mean public/official holiday yes, but in a completely different context. This is a bit like opening a dictionary, seeing 10 different meanings of a word, and picking the first. It might be correct in some context. Not this one.
In law, context is king.
DeepL gives us this rendering:
The “English” translation according to DeepL
– Again this is neither fluent nor accurate.
– Again we have to ask whether employee is the right choice of term here.
– Why is the “suspended from duty” idea now in the first part of the sentence when the Greek is referring to the fact that the department/unit the person works for has not had to handle any disciplinary/criminal complaints against that person?
– “Placed on leave”. Does that fully convey the concept of αργία? Or is it only covering part of the concept? αργία/argia means you are (i) stripped of the right to perform your duties + (ii) you only receive half your salary. “Placed on leave” really doesn’t cut it.
– Placed on “suspension from duty”. Grammatically does that stand in English? It’s beyond awkward and definitely doesn’t flow. Let’s say αναστολή here does mean that the person is suspended from duty. Is that with pay or without pay? How is this concept related to the previous one (αργία)? How does the “translation” differentiate between the two so that the reader actually understands what is going on?
Chatgpt 4.0gives us this:
The “English” translation according to Chatgpt
– This is again not fluent English. Nor is it accurate.
– As with the other versions we have to ask whether “employee” is the correct term.
– The first half of the sentence sort of conveys the meaning but omits quite an important bit of information (that the place where this person works has not had to handle complaints against them). Let’s say you get some general idea. In legal settings, do you really only want to walk away with “some general idea”?
– The second half of the sentence doesn’t fluently link to the second half.
– If αναστολή is the concept of “suspended” why does Chatgpt render αργία as “placed on suspension”? Does it draw an adequate distinction between the terms? From the viewpoint of Greek law, the two terms are quite distinct (related yes, but distinct). Let’s say there is an element of “suspension” in αργία, does the English rendering this tool offers accurately and fully convey what the Greek concept is saying? Or does it not omit a huge part of the meaning? What of the point we highlighted above concerning reduction in pay? How does that get conveyed by the wording chosen here?
Reality check
If you’re an ordinary individual using these tools to get some idea of what the Greek text is saying, can you hand-on-heart say you really understand the Greek after reading these “English” renderings?
If you’re a Greek lawyer who has to explain what is going on to a foreign client, can you hand-on-heart say these various “English” renderings adequately convey what the Greek text says?
Would you feel comfortable relying on them in a professional context?
With tools like these you may gain speed.
“Translations” may be available at the click of a button.
But are the “translations” actually useable?
If you need a translation to understand a legal text or you’re a lawyer who needs one in their legal work, use a specialist legal translator.
Reach out to us at Jurtrans Translations for impeccably accurate Greek-English legal translations.
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:
The text to be translated
This is the output:
ChatGPT’s 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:
The “actual” legal provision
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:
ChatGPT’s view of its output
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.
What happens when a supreme court plugs MT into its website?
Check out the images below:
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 expertisefor 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
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