What it is
A definitions article does two things at once. An opening phrase sets the scope within which everything below it holds, and a repeated construction couples each defined expression to the content it will carry everywhere else in the act. Both are formula rather than composition.
The risk is frequency. The coupling construction can recur a dozen times on a single page, and variation introduced for the sake of variety reads as a distinction the act never drew. Inside a definitions article a change of wording is taken as a change of content, because drawing that kind of distinction is the only work the article does.
Where a definition holds a term, the cut runs between what the term means and how the act says so. The term record keeps the concept, its characteristics and its designations; this record keeps the frame the act puts around them. A second cut runs toward the structures section, because the target versions rebuild the article rather than mirror it: the clause architecture that results is a structural property of the language, while the wording that fills it is fixed by the act and belongs here.
Where the fixity comes from
Two warrants sit one on top of the other, and confusing them overstates what the guide settles.
Guideline 14 of the Joint Practical Guide fixes placement and effect. Where the terms of an act are not unambiguous they are to be defined together in a single article at the beginning; definitions carry no autonomous normative provisions; and a term once defined keeps that meaning throughout. Nothing in the guideline prescribes the words the definitions are written in, and nothing else opened for this record does either.
The wording is fixed one level lower, in the language versions of the act. Each version of Regulation (EU) 2016/1191 prints its own opening phrase and its own coupling construction, and neither moves unless the regulation is amended. That is why a deviation here is a finding rather than a preference, and why the finding is against the version rather than against the guide.
Consequences for translation
The article is short, repetitive and easy to underestimate, which is why its defects survive review.
- Variation within one article is a defect and not a stylistic choice. Two renderings of one construction on one page send a reader looking for a difference.
- The opening phrase carries the scope of everything beneath it. Moving it, splitting it or restating it item by item changes how far the definitions reach.
- The English habit of repeating the definitional verb at each item is not a standard the target has to meet. Three target versions of the same provision each place a single governing verb in the opening phrase.
- A defined expression rendered one way in the definitions article and another way later breaks the link the article created. That is checkable without reading for sense, and one of the few things in a legal text a reviser can flag mechanically.
Examples
EN>FR
- Source: For the purposes of this Regulation: (1) 'public documents' means:
- Target: Aux fins du présent règlement, on entend par: 1) «documents publics»:
- Comment: Regulation (EU) 2016/1191, Article 3, English and French versions. The French opening phrase carries the definitional verb once, so on entend par governs every item and no verb recurs below it. A translator reproducing the English shape would set a verb at each item, and the article would read as translated.
EN>NL
- Source: For the purposes of this Regulation: (1) 'public documents' means:
- Target: Voor de toepassing van deze verordening wordt verstaan onder: 1. „openbare documenten”:
- Comment: Same provision. Dutch does what French does and adds a passive, so wordt verstaan onder governs the list. The quotation marks around the defined expression differ across the three target versions and are notation rather than wording, so nothing turns on them.
EN>DE
- Source: For the purposes of this Regulation: (1) 'public documents' means:
- Target: Für die Zwecke dieser Verordnung bezeichnet der Ausdruck 1. „öffentliche Urkunden”:
- Comment: Same provision once more. German also governs from the opening phrase, with bezeichnet der Ausdruck left waiting for the item to supply what it names. Three target versions agree against the source, which settles the direction: the repeated verb is a property of the English version, not a pattern the others owe it.
References
- Joint Practical Guide of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission for persons involved in the drafting of European Union legislation, 2015 edition. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Guideline 14, at p. 41.
- Regulation (EU) 2016/1191 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 2016 on promoting the free movement of citizens by simplifying the requirements for presenting certain public documents in the European Union and amending Regulation (EU) No 1024/2012, Article 3, English, French, Dutch and German language versions.