Université de Montréal - Thèse sous forme numérique

14The (un)translatability debate of law is relevant for legal translation as well as forterminology, because the anisomorphism of legal languages raises challenges when itcomes to finding equivalents of system-bound terms. One example of this is thepolemics around the translation of the Portuguese legal term arguido, which was evengiven an entry in Wikipedia because of the ―Maddie case‖ that started in 2007. Thestory of the 3-year-old Madeleine McCann, who disappeared in May 2007 while onholiday with her parents and twin siblings in the south of Portugal, was knownworldwide due to its huge media coverage. The investigation into her disappearanceinvolved the co-operation of the British and Portuguese police and demonstrated thediffering methodologies employed by each, with regard to such aspects as the amount ofinformation released to the public and the legal status of those involved in the case. Asthe police investigation progressed, Maddie‘s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, weregranted the arguido status. British people following the case of their compatriots did notknow what arguido meant.Portuguese Criminal Law makes a distinction between arguido and suspeito(suspect). An arguido is someone who is being treated by the police as more than awitness but has not necessarily been arrested or charged. They can choose to enter thisstatus of their own volition or by being nominated by the police. In contrast, a suspeitois someone who is thought of as having committed or participated in a crime or who isabout to commit or participate in a crime and they cannot enter this status voluntarily(Antunes 2004). British Criminal Procedure does not make the same distinction due toits different criminal system. As a result, reporters writing on this case faced theproblem of explaining what an arguido was because there is no perfect Englishequivalent for it. The equivalents proposed were suspect and formal suspect. Weconsider formal suspect closer to arguido than suspect which is the equivalent ofsuspeito. When the arguido has already been charged, then the equivalent is defendant.We will refer back to this in section 2.2.3.