German courts conducting cases in English/Die Gerichtssprache soll nicht nur Deutsch sein

Some cases can already be conducted in English in Cologne. The FAZ reports: Deutsche Gerichte verhandeln nun auch auf Englisch The German Judicature or Court Constitution Act (Gerichtsverfassungsgesetz) provides that the language of the courts is German. There is now an inistiative of the ministers of justice of North-Rhine-Westphalia and Hamburg to have the statute altered, but the Cologne Higher Regional Court (Oberlandesgericht) has already made it possible for civil cases to be heard in English, provided that current law permits it - i.e. for trial, but not in writing. (The regional courts - Landgerichte - in Aachen, Bonn and Cologne, and the Cologne Higher Regional Court have set up particular chambers which can hold an oral hearing in English). The article has a silly illustration - a photo of a row of very small Langenscheidt dictionaries! The ministers argue that the most interesting and lucrative cases involving German undertakings are often conducted in US or English courts, at the request of English-speaking business associates, and as a result an English-speaking jurisdiction is chosen at the outset. This is a bit worrying. There are complaints about how much got lost when there was translation into German, or presumably interpreting in German, and a belief that judges who have worked in international law firms or acquired a foreign LL.M. can speak English. I have no doubt they can, but their ability to write it seems not to be greatly trained abroad. There are a surprising number of German academics and lawyers, educated in English and having spent a year abroad, who write specialist English by translating word-for-word from German. Brigitte Kamphausen, stellvertretende Vorsitzende des Richterbunds, sa…