Enlargement at the European Court of Justice: Law, Language and Translation

Abstract

The enlargement of the EU to 25 Member States in May 2005, followed by the accession of two more states in January 2007, raised a number of questions concerning the organisational structure of that Union-the sheer scale of the largest EU expansion to date highlighted the need to restructure EU institutions. For the European Court of Justice (ECJ), enlargement meant a huge influx of people to staff new divisions in the administrative hierarchy of the Court. This article describes the process and effects of enlargement at the ECJ, particularly in relation to translation and the language regime of that Court. Prior to the May 2004 and January 2007 enlargements there was a general perception among those working at the Court that enlargement would result in significant dislocation of life at that institution. In particular, it was felt that the translation directorate would not be able to cope with the addition of 11 'new' languages to the list of official EU languages. The reality, however, was far from the disaster that many had predicted. That said, even a mere year following the May 2004 enlargement, a number of changes in the functioning and dynamics of that Court were already noticeable.

The Limitations of a Multilingual Legal System

“…47 This paper, together with previous work by the author [16][17][18][19][20][21] is suggestive of a research agenda just beginning to be explored. Problematising the CJEU in terms of its operation as a multilingual, multicultural institution also opens up further questions in relation to the role of language in the production and application of EU law.…”

“…documented by the present author [16][17][18][19][20][21]. While the role of the lawyer-linguists who produce the translations may be "the perfect synthesis of a lawyer and a linguist", there are nonetheless many difficulties which arise due to the ambiguity and approximation inherent in translation [17,[20][21].…”

“…The importance of the multilingual aspect of the CJEU's work has come increasingly to the fore in recent years, particularly since the 'mega-enlargement' of 2004 [16]. Indeed, the 'General Presentation' of the Court, as stated on its own website 6 consists of only two paragraphs, the first setting out the 'mission' of that Court and the second stating:…”

“…Interestingly, most of the judges interviewed blamed this on "the translators adhering too literally to the French originals" and not on the fact that those documents are drafted, for the most part, by non-francophones, or that they are quite often the product of a compromise in deliberations (during which the precise wording of a particular phrase may be discussed for days or even weeks), or indeed that the nature of those judgments makes it almost impossible for them to be drafted in a free-flowing or easily readable style 16 .…”

Hybrid Texts and Uniform Law? The Multilingual Case Law of the Court of Justice of the European Union

“…12 In reality it is the référendaire assigned to the case who drafts, at least the first version, of that judgment. Officially judgments are drafted, discussed and deliberated on in French, however, it has occasionally been the case that certain General Court competition law cases, in which the language of the case was English, were dealt with entirely in that language.…”