Translation in the EU: Language and Law in the EU's Judicial Labyrinth

The decline, even the ‘end’, of comparative law in the 21^st century has recently been predicted.¹ However, this statement overlooks the vital and continuing role of comparative law in the complex task of legal translation in an expanding EU.

To ensure the protection of language rights and transparency, the Court of Justice of the European Union requires translations of national and EU law on a daily basis. The complex task of the translation of law in the Court is carried out by highly qualified Lawyer-Linguists, experts in law and language, who enter the service through rigorous selection processes.²

The methodology employed by these specialists, however, remains to a large extent a ‘black box’ and traditional tenets of legal translation theory appear to be of limited application.³ This article aims to shed light on this black box with a focus on the rarely discussed use of comparative law in the translation process in the Court, in particular in preliminary ruling procedures.⁴