VVU_Mittlg 111.2013 - VVU BW

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N o 110 Mitteilungen
BERUFLICHE INFORMATION
Liese Katschinka hat ihr Diplom als Übersetzerin
und Dolmetscherin an der Universität Wien
erworben, ist als Konferenzdolmetscherin (Mitglied
der AIIC), Fachübersetzerin und Gerichtsdolmetscherin
in Österreich tätig. Sie bekleidete
diverse Funktionen in nationalen und internationalen
Verbänden und ist derzeit die Präsidentin
von EULITA.
it were possible for anybody to produce a translation of a document,
the probability of an error will certainly increase dramatically
with any legislation that would be adopted as a result
of the aforementioned Proposal for a Regulation. In fact,
it may actually become an incentive for persons who expect
to derive an advantage from producing a translation of a document
with a modified content. After all, the above-mentioned
EU proposal will make it possible for anybody to produce
a translation without indicating the name of the translator.
The EU proposal may therefore become an incentive
for falsifying and/or forging documents. Certainly, this cannot
be the objective of simplifying administrative procedures.
The exception in the current Proposal for a Regulation, namely
that an authority should ask for a certified translation in
case of reasonable doubt will require that the official called
upon to accept a document is in a position to realize that
he/she should have reasonable doubts about a translated document.
A prerequisite for that would be that officials are familiar
and fluent in all the languages for which they have to
accept documents, which is an unlikely Situation in most settings
and countries.
Moreover, once an authority has accepted the flawed
translation of a document and issued a flawed decision on its
basis, the error will have to be rectified by way of legal remedies.
In this connection, it is not clear who will ultimately
bear the cost of such civil-law litigation, who will ultimately
be held responsible and liable, and who will perhaps be
punishable for the flawed translated document. The costs
accruing from such litigation will certainly be higher than
the cost of the certifying a translation in the first place.
A high level of trust attaches to public documents - both
to the issuer of the document and to its content. Public documents
(in their original or translated form) are also of great
significance as evidence both in criminal and civil law proceedings.
It is therefore doubtful whether it is meaningful to
broaden the scope of uncertified documents beyond the application
of multi-language standardized EU forms.
When bearing in mind that EU Directive 2010/64 on the
right to Interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings
expressly mentions the right to a high level of quality
in language Services, it seems to be counter-productive to
pursue legislation that will lower the Standards for translations
of public documents.
The European Legal Interpreters and Translators Association
(EULITA) will be happy to provide further information
on this issue as well as to discuss the matter with members
of the JURI Committee.
Looking forward to your comments, I remain, with kind
regards,
Liese Katschinka,
President of EULITA
on behalf of the Executive Committee
VVU Baden-Württemberg 8/12
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