Multilingual Law and Judicial Interpretation in the EU

The purpose of this article is to assess how multilingualism affects judicial interpretation of EU law. In the EU, the European Court of Justice is in the position of having the final say on what EU norms mean. Therefore, the article looks into the case law of that Court. It is well known that all o...

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Main Author: Tamara Ćapeta
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Zagreb, Faculty of Law 2009-12-01
Series:Croatian Yearbook of European Law and Policy
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.cyelp.com/index.php/cyelp/article/view/88
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author Tamara Ćapeta
author_facet Tamara Ćapeta
author_sort Tamara Ćapeta
collection DOAJ
description The purpose of this article is to assess how multilingualism affects judicial interpretation of EU law. In the EU, the European Court of Justice is in the position of having the final say on what EU norms mean. Therefore, the article looks into the case law of that Court. It is well known that all official EU languages (23 of them at present) are authentic languages. Less known is what the related consequences are for interpretation in judicial proceedings. The first aim of the article is to find out what consequences the ECJ has drawn from this fact. Secondly, even though in some cases (eg CILFIT) the ECJ has postulated language comparison as a necessary step in construing the meaning of EU law, it is clear that such comparisons are not performed on a regular basis. Therefore, the article looks into when, on whose initiative, and for what purpose the Court performs a comparison of the same EU norm(s) expressed in different languages. The article then looks into what the Court does if discrepancies in different language versions are found, and concludes that such a problem is overcome by looking for the purpose of a legal norm. Finally, it is found that multilingualism does not significantly affect the manner and outcome of interpretation by the ECJ.
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spelling doaj.art-23bb65570b3848b8b68c71b7c68067982022-12-22T00:44:41ZengUniversity of Zagreb, Faculty of LawCroatian Yearbook of European Law and Policy1845-56621848-99582009-12-01511810.3935/cyelp.05.2009.88Multilingual Law and Judicial Interpretation in the EUTamara Ćapeta0University of ZagrebThe purpose of this article is to assess how multilingualism affects judicial interpretation of EU law. In the EU, the European Court of Justice is in the position of having the final say on what EU norms mean. Therefore, the article looks into the case law of that Court. It is well known that all official EU languages (23 of them at present) are authentic languages. Less known is what the related consequences are for interpretation in judicial proceedings. The first aim of the article is to find out what consequences the ECJ has drawn from this fact. Secondly, even though in some cases (eg CILFIT) the ECJ has postulated language comparison as a necessary step in construing the meaning of EU law, it is clear that such comparisons are not performed on a regular basis. Therefore, the article looks into when, on whose initiative, and for what purpose the Court performs a comparison of the same EU norm(s) expressed in different languages. The article then looks into what the Court does if discrepancies in different language versions are found, and concludes that such a problem is overcome by looking for the purpose of a legal norm. Finally, it is found that multilingualism does not significantly affect the manner and outcome of interpretation by the ECJ.https://www.cyelp.com/index.php/cyelp/article/view/88european court of justicemultilingualisminterpretation of eu lawlanguage comparison
spellingShingle Tamara Ćapeta
Multilingual Law and Judicial Interpretation in the EU
Croatian Yearbook of European Law and Policy
european court of justice
multilingualism
interpretation of eu law
language comparison
title Multilingual Law and Judicial Interpretation in the EU
title_full Multilingual Law and Judicial Interpretation in the EU
title_fullStr Multilingual Law and Judicial Interpretation in the EU
title_full_unstemmed Multilingual Law and Judicial Interpretation in the EU
title_short Multilingual Law and Judicial Interpretation in the EU
title_sort multilingual law and judicial interpretation in the eu
topic european court of justice
multilingualism
interpretation of eu law
language comparison
url https://www.cyelp.com/index.php/cyelp/article/view/88
work_keys_str_mv AT tamaracapeta multilinguallawandjudicialinterpretationintheeu