Indirect speech in judgments/Indirekte Rede in Urteilen DE>EN

There was a query on Proz this week on a topic I remember once discussing on u-forum: when you translate a judgment from German to English, how do you indicate that part of it is in reported speech? I basically agreed with the solution in this case, although it wasn't quite what I would do (using words like 'allegedly' was one of the points, and I find that a bit negative). I must say that the suggestions and discussions on Proz are often extremely helpful to me. Proz has this weird system called Kudoz, whereby you get points if you help someone to answer a question. This seems to force people to put effort into their answers, because they get even more points if their answer is selected, although sometimes the asker doesn't select the best answer. There are discussions on Leo and dict. cc too, which tend to be more time-consuming to consult. So here's the problem: German uses the subjunctive for reported speech. It is absolutely clear from the verb itself that this is reported speech, even without the reporting verb. Here is a sentence from a judgment of the Bundesgerichtshof: Nach Auffassung des Berufungsgerichts hat die Klägerin einen Anspruch darauf, dass die Beklagte die Bezeichnung der Klägerin als "Terroristentochter" unterlässt (§ 823 Abs. 1, § 1004 BGB analog). Die Bezeichnung verletze die Klägerin rechtswidrig in ihrem allgemeinen Persönlichkeitsrecht. The judgment quotes another court. It is a vital part of the meaning that this is a quotation. In the second sentence, the verletze is subjunctive, so clearly indirect speech, without any introductory verb or 'Nach Auffassung' and so on. In English, it is essential to make this reporting clear. If the reporting verb is in the past tense, the reported verb is backshifted, but this is not always enough to show reported speech: it could mean 'verletze' or 'verletzte'. English reported speech rules are not terribly well understood in Germany, partly I think because students are expected to adhere rigidly to the backshift whereas we don't backshift every single verb if it's clear. Still, here is a summary: Reporting verb in present tense or 'According to' etc: no backshift Reporting verb in past tense: backshift Canoonet has a nice summary of the German practice. In the German example above, the first sentence has 'Nach Auffassung des Berufungsgerichts' and no subjunctive, the second sentence has subjunctive. In English, the reporting phrase 'In the opinion of the Higher Regional Court (Oberlandesgericht)' would also be followed by a present tense, and the second sentence would remain present tense too. Techniques of showing it is reported speech: you may replace 'in the opinion of the court' by 'the court held', followed by a backshift. You may pepper the translation, as it continues with a big block of reported speech in the subjunctive, with more reporting verbs and 'in the court's view' - these may not be there in the German, but they convey the subjunctive. Another help is that if a…