The two grand theories of judging – legal realism and legal formalism - have their differences set around the importance of legal rules. For formalists, judging is a rule-bound activity. In its more extreme versions, a judge is seen as an operator of a giant syllogism machine. Legal realists, in contrast, argue that legal rules, at least formal legal rules, do not determine outcomes of cases. Legal realism has been misunderstood almost everywhere outside its birthplace – the United States. Continental (...) legal theory, for one, views legal realism as practical, down-to-earth, hard-nosed school of thought which is opposed to the more “scientific” theories. The purpose of this article is two-fold. First, to show what legal realists really stood for - that contrary to the popular myth, they did not maintain that formal legal rules do not matter at all; that most of them considered legal rules to be important, only many of those rules are informal rules. Second, contrary to the popular understanding in Continental legal theory, legal realism by its nature was not an antiscientific theory of judging - in fact, it was either a first scientific theory of judging or at least its prototype. (shrink)

This article tries to bring to light the mistaken idea that the words the law borrows from plain language, without explicit definition, should keep their original meaning; Although legal language and plain language are obviously close “friends”, they seem to be also “false friends”, because these words belonging to two different languages have, beyond their formal similarities, partially different meanings. For this purpose, this article provides a critical analysis of the reference of the belgian case law to the ordinary meaning (...) of words. This reference is analysed in relation to three different matters: interpretation, legality, and autonomy of criminal law. (shrink)

The paper proposes an analysis and a formalisation of factor-based reasoning. After examining the relevance of factors in legal reasoning, binary and scalable factors (dimensions) are distinguished and the relations between them are discussed. An account of a fortiori reasoning with both types of factors is developed.

Translated texts sometimes reflect the writing tradition of the targeted law, but the equivalence of the source legal message, however, must be delivered in the target text. Translating law into a different legal culture cannot be accomplished without comparing laws, whose knowledge is essential to achieving legal equivalence. The way the target text is written should match its culture. Translating law is the moment when languages, cultures and laws meet. To materialize, this encounter has to be based on an ad (...) hoc knowledge of the laws at stake. Then comparative law, translators’ “fellow traveler”, comes into play, preparing them for the exchange. To achieve this, “one only needs two receptions which intersect”. This move is successful when concepts and notions overlap and the letter of law and its wording merge, revealing “the spirit of the laws”. Comparative analysis is the way to achieve this result. It is conducted here under the light of jurilinguistics with an analysis of terms and concepts presenting various translation difficulties, demonstrating the necessity of comparative law. The lessons to be learned are aimed at all language professionals wishing to draw inspiration from the jurilinguists’comparative analysis approach to their work. (shrink)

The aim of the present study is to propose an approach to legal translation quality so as to address the idiosyncrasies in legal studies and to confront the challenges and flaws of previous paradigms and models of translation quality assessment. The present approach is associated with the micro-macro textual, contextual, and legal components/variables in the pursuit of an adequate strategy through elaborating the decision making process for translation. The elements of the decision making process remain constant between translation relevancy/brief, and (...) the translation product in the source text analysis, reformulation and revision stages. Translation competence, translation product, and the translation decision making process are all the evaluative standards for both quality controllers and translators. Also, this study scrutinizes the impact of translation quality assessment involving professional and training contexts besides managerial quality. In the upshot, this approach has the potential to reduce subjectivity in the quality of legal translation based on particular methodologies. The proposed framework assists the need for the evaluation of the quality of legal translation to boost the quality benchmarks in the professional environment. (shrink)

Au-delà des frontières des langues, des cultures juridiques et systèmes de droit, conciliant synchronie et diachronie, le Professeur Mattila nous offre une oeuvre riche en couleurs, rencontres illustres et cas d’espèce. Nul doute qu’il s’agit là d’un ouvrage de référence, à la fois au regard de l’introduction d’une approche heuristique et de la cartographie d’un champ de connaissances commun au juriste et au linguiste. Sa vaste étude des interactions terminologiques et conceptuelles des langues et traditions juridiques européennes propose un tableau (...) minutieux, systématique et argumenté de la situation du langage juridique dans cinq langues. Elle offre une réflexion sur le développement de ces langues, notamment sur le plan international. Travail herculéen s’il en est, il ne pouvait être réalisé que par un humaniste accompli. Heikki Mattila, professeur émérite de jurilinguistique à l’Université de Lapland en Finlande, est juriste, spécialiste multilingue du langage juridique, linguiste .. (shrink)

The paper will discuss the role of the visual in French urban space. It will reveal the close connections between visual and semiotics where the visual dimension is central rather than marginal. We will evaluate altogether the psychological, legal and social impacts of the new shapes of our own environment. Rethinking our public space shapes our identities, unveils the ‘hidden’ powerful discourse behind these new urban models.