Translating German court judgments: a seminar in Berlin

On 13 October 2018 I attended yet another first-rate seminar for legal translators in Berlin: “Translating German court judgments, including exercises”. This CPD activity was organised by the German Federal Association of Translators and Interpreters (BDÜ), Berlin-Brandenburg chapter.

The presenter, Corinna Schlüter-Ellner, is a fully qualified legal professional, a certified Spanish translator and the author of one of my favourite books on legal terminology (Juristendeutsch verständlich gemacht / Treffende Verben in der deutschen Rechtssprache).

Basic concepts of German civil and criminal law

I liked very much the way the seminar was structured, as the presenter not only explained the basic concepts of and contextual information on German civil and criminal law, but also frequently discussed comparative legal terminology (in German and another language, especially Spanish).

A not insignificant number of seminar participants were Spanish translators for the German courts and benefited especially from the presenter’s expertise and experience. So did I, because even though Spanish is not one of the working languages I use it as an intermediary language when performing terminology research due to its being similar to Portuguese.

German procedural law

First, there was a brief discussion of basic concepts of German procedural law. Topics included: court jurisdictions within the German legal system, the parties to a civil and criminal procedure and the difference between admissibility and merit.

The presenter gave us an overview of the different stages of a German criminal procedure and the different court rulings. Also included in the programme were formal aspects of a judgment, how evidence is taken and judgments are contested.

During the presentation, the many attendee questions were always answered competently and intelligibly, and in hands-on wording exercises we were able to immediately apply the newly acquired knowledge.

Structure of German court judgments

After that, the presenter tackled the core of the seminar’s programme, namely the structure of German court judgments, with a detailed discussion of specialised terms, commonly used expressions, word groups and, especially, linguistic and stylistic conventions used in judgments.

I found the examples of wording taking from procedural practice and comparing German judgments with those in other languages to be extremely useful.

In all these years attending seminars for legal translators, I have very rarely had a learning experience with so much useful content. Maybe the reason why the seminar was so successful was that the presenter is not only a legal professional, but also a translator herself, i.e. she knows perfectly well what kind of knowledge and skills translators need to have.

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