Transblawg

5. April 2012 —I know the word preclusion exists in English, and it may be slightly more common in the USA than in the UK. But I always feel worried when I see it and wonder what peculiar technical details may apply to it. It reminds me of German lawyers teaching German law and spending a good half hour on terms l…

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28. April 2011 —The meaning of the term "common law" This term has at least four different meanings. 1. (in contrast to local law) The law common to the whole of England after 1066, as opposed to local law (which had existed before 1066 and continued to exist to some extent after 1066). This was the original meanin…

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25. Januar 2011 —Here is my second colleague's book. The photo is not too good. Details on the publisher's website (in German). This is a synoptic translation: the original German on the left, sometimes descriptive, sometimes parts of legislation, and the English version, by Fry & Bonthrone Partnership, on the r…

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2. August 2010 —http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ is the new website replacing previous sites. Q. What has happened to the OPSI and Statute Law Database (SLD) websites? A. Legislation.gov.uk brings together the legislative content currently held on the OPSI website and revised legislation from the Statute Law Da…

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23. Juni 2010 —I discovered only recently that the most authoritative places write value added tax, not value-added tax. This goes against the normal rule that compound adjectives of this construction take a hyphen. To quote this discussion: Surely it should be value added tax, no hyphen, not value-added tax? Se…

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1. November 2008 —A non-profit site for texts and links on German law in English has been set up with the help of the German Foreign Office: Centre for German Legal Information I completely missed this until alerted by a comment, but it has been widely announced on German embassies from the beginning of September onw…

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9. August 2008 —Proponents of Proposition 8 in California, 'Eliminates the Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry', want it changed to 'Limit on Marriage'. They think the verb 'eliminates' is negative and not typical of titles of legislation in California. Superior Court Judge Timothy M. Frawley said 'There is nothing …

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11. Februar 2008 —Some words have two different translations. Lücke in German can mean a gap in a contract that shouldn't be there - a gap. It can also mean a situation that has been missed out by some legislation - tax laws, for example and can therefore be exploited - a loophole. Mixing the two up in translation ca…

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18. November 2007 —Rechtsbereinigung is the process of repealing statutes and provisions no longer used. A Rechtsbereinigungsgesetz (Repeal Act?) was passed in mid-October, repealing 200 statutes and statutory orders. Under the heading Eingeführt von den Nazis: Anwaltsmonopol, Kindergeld und olympischer Fackellauf, RP…

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3. Juli 2007 — It's puzzled me for many years why so many legal dictionaries translate Gesetz as law. The term Act (capital A required) is OK for Britain and the USA both. We use law as a superordinate term for both statutes and delegated legislation. One theory a colleague of mine had was that German lawye…

28. November 2006 — In English law, there is legislation on domestic violence (Oxford Law Dictionary: 'Physical violence inflicted on a person by their husband, wife, or cohabitant'), for instance enabling a wife to get an order banning her husband from the matrimonial home. Romain suggests Gewalttätigkeiten im …

11. August 2006 — Henriettes Inselbote is a German weblog written either by Henriette or her granddaughter, on the subject of living in Great Britain. I can see at once that Henriette and I are both in the wrong country when I read that she actually misses white asparagus. By the way, here’s another little i…

31. Mai 2006 — There are several kinds of multilingual legislative drafting: serial drafting, co-drafting / parallel drafting. Words like double, joint and alternate also crop up. Here is a memorandum, Technical Issues in Collaborative Multilingual Legislative Drafting, by William J. McIver Jr., a Canadian.…

26. Januar 2006 — Working Languages is by the mysterious CM, who works for the EU as a translator and interpreter, apparently. In an entry on Eurospeak, for instance, he discusses an individual’s bad English (‘sensibly lower’ instead of ‘appreciably lower’) which enters EU legislation. …

12. Januar 2006 — Deutsch und Englisch / German and English Many years ago, I had a copy of Deutsches Bilanzrecht, by Brooks/Mertin, which was a great secret weapon. That was a third edition of extracts from German accounting legislation, with a synoptic translation into English, and these extracts contained t…

6. November 2005 — When I started this blog, I was thinking of calling it No Sanity Clause. It had the ideal link between law and Mar(ks)x. But then I realized that not many Germans would understand that. Perhaps it’s just as well, since this name has since been taken elsewhere. In any case, there is legislatio…

4. Mai 2005 —High prices for Swiss products largely result from restrictive import legislation. In future, any product permitted for sale in the EU is to be permitted for sale in Switzerland. Neue Züricher Zeitung: So dürfen nach den heute geltenden Regeln zum...…

16. Januar 2005 —‘Over the past five years, an international “free access to law movement” has emerged, based around independent, often University-based, Legal Information Institutes (LIIs). They give links to primary legal materials - legislation, case-law, treaties etc., and some secondary materials. Here’s...…