What it is
In a multilingual legal order the terminological question changes shape. There is no source text for a translation to be equivalent to, because every language version is authentic and none prevails. And the concept designated is not a national one that has been carried across, but a concept belonging to the supranational order itself.
Both halves are settled law rather than doctrine. When one decision is addressed to all member states, the Court of Justice held in Stauder, the need for uniform application and therefore uniform interpretation makes it impossible to consider one version in isolation: the text must be read in the light of the versions in all the languages, and by reference to the author's real intention and the aim pursued. The case arose because the German version required coupons indicating the recipient's name while the others required only a coupon referring to the person concerned.
CILFIT states the second half. Even where the language versions agree entirely, the Court held, Community law uses terminology which is peculiar to it, and legal concepts do not necessarily have the same meaning in Community law and in the law of the various member states. The judgment says Community law, which is what the 1982 text says; the point survives the change of name.
Where the authorities stand
The doctrine is standardized and the practice diverges from it, which is the most useful thing this record can report.
On the doctrinal side, the drafting consequence is drawn plainly. Robertson and Mac Aodha set out, quoting Šarčević, that terms of national law should not be used to designate European Union concepts unless the concepts are identical or nearly equivalent, precisely so as not to risk misinterpretation. That is the warrant for the preclusion carried in this record's frontmatter, and it is narrower than a blanket prohibition: the objection is to importing a national concept, not to using an existing designation. The same source records the positive strategy, again after Šarčević, of preferring internationalisms of Greek and Latin origin over localisms for highly technical terms, so as to signal to users that they are dealing with a terminus technicus of European law.
On the practical side, Paluszek counted what the Court actually does. Of eighty judgments examined, only nineteen declared that all language versions had been studied, and in fifty-five of the eighty the number of versions considered did not reach half. Her sharper figure is the one to remember: only four judgments contain an analysis of the provision in all the official languages. The requirement of Stauder is real, and it is not routinely met even by the court that imposed it.
That gap is not an argument against the doctrine. It is an argument for treating an apparent clarity in one version as provisional until the others are checked.
Consequences for translation
- There is no source text, so there is no source-text fidelity to appeal to. The question is whether the version states the same rule as the others, not whether it renders one of them faithfully.
- A divergence between versions is a defect in the instrument, not a local translation problem. It is corrected by a corrigendum, which is the citable authority afterwards.
- A national-law designation imports a national concept. Where the supranational concept is not identical or nearly so, that import is what the drafting rules are directed against.
- A neutral Greco-Latin designation is a signal, not a stylistic preference. Its unfamiliarity in the target legal culture marks the concept as belonging to the supranational order.
Examples
EN>PL
- Source: wildlife
- Target: dzika zwierzyna, corrected to dzikie zwierzęta
- Comment: A divergence caught and repaired. In the Polish version of the aerodrome regulation the original wording used a term whose reference is to wild game, importing a hunting frame the English does not carry, and a corrigendum replaced it with the wider expression. The corrected wording is the one the consolidated text now carries.
EN>ES
- Source: wildlife
- Target: fauna, fauna silvestre
- Comment: The same concept in the same instrument, designated by a Latinate term rather than by a compound built on the word for animal. The Spanish version is not less precise for it; it illustrates that language versions of one authentic instrument need not converge on a common word-formation pattern, and that a version cannot be assessed by how closely it tracks the English.
DE>EN
- Source: unter Angabe des Namens
- Target: referring to the person concerned
- Comment: The divergence that produced the doctrine. In Stauder the German version required the recipient's name on the coupon and the other versions did not, and the Court held that no single version could be considered in isolation. The pair is worth keeping because it shows the failure at its smallest: one participle's worth of difference, with a data-protection question behind it.
References
- Case 29/69 Stauder v City of Ulm, judgment of 12 November 1969, paragraphs 2 to 4.
- Case 283/81 CILFIT v Ministry of Health, judgment of 6 October 1982, paragraphs 18 to 20, in particular paragraph 19.
- Paluszek, K. (2014). "The Equal Authenticity of Official Language Versions of European Legislation in Light of Their Consideration by the Court of Justice of the European Union." Comparative Legilinguistics 18, 47 to 62, at pp. 53, 55 and 58.
- Robertson, C. D. and Mac Aodha, M. (2023). "Legal terminology of the European Union." In Ł. Biel and H. J. Kockaert (eds), Handbook of Terminology, Volume 3: Legal Terminology, 245 to 270. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, at p. 258.
- Commission Regulation (EU) No 139/2014 of 12 February 2014, OJ L 44, 14 February 2014, p. 1, Articles 9 and 10, English, German, Spanish and Polish language versions, with the Polish corrigendum at OJ L 75, 19 March 2018, p. 41.