On 12 July, the three-member Athens Court of Appeal indefinitely suspended proceedings in the Siemens scandal because the summons and indictment had not been translated into the defendants` mother tongue. The court granted the request of the non-Greek defendants and stayed the proceedings until the translation could be completed, although this suspension could result in the statute of limitations for the offences. Of course, this is the only decision that the Court could have reached, since the right to interpretation and translation for those who do not speak or understand the language of the proceedings is enshrined in Article 6 of the ECHR, as interpreted by the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, and is further specified by Directive 2010/64/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council. In accordance with the Directive, Member States should ensure that free and adequate linguistic assistance is available to enable suspects or accused persons who do not speak or understand the language of criminal proceedings to fully exercise their rights of defence and to ensure a fair trial. Article 3 of the Directive also states: „In order to ensure a fair trial, essential documents, or at least the relevant parts thereof, must be translated for the benefit of suspects or accused persons in accordance with this Directive. Certain documents should always be considered essential for this purpose and should therefore be translated, such as any decision depriving of liberty, any accusation or accusation and any judgment. The national language version of this page is managed by the Member State concerned. The translations were carried out by the European Commission. Any changes made to the original by the competent national authority may not yet be reflected in the translations. The European Commission accepts no responsibility for any information or data contained or referred to in this document.
Please note the copyright regulations of the Member State responsible for this site. Eva is a legal translator from English/German-Greek. She holds a master`s degree in law and a postgraduate diploma in specialized translation. She worked as a lawyer in Greece for 7 years and has been bringing her expertise and knowledge to the translation industry for 3 years. An SDL Certified Translator, she is obsessed with languages. In addition to working with language, she also enjoys traveling. She has lived in Greece, Germany and Belgium and now lives in Ireland. In addition, the activity of lawyer under the Lawyers` Code (Article 36 of Law No. 4194/2013 Official Gazette, Series I, No.
208) includes the translation of documents written in a foreign language and the translation of Greek documents into any foreign language. The translation shall be in full effect before any court or other authority, provided that it is accompanied by a certified copy of the original document and that the lawyer certifies that he has sufficient knowledge of the language from which it was translated and into which it was translated. The failure to translate the legal content, which is essential to the case, has therefore rightly been described as an even greater scandal than the Siemens scandal. The translation service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is responsible for translating these documents, initially indicated that all the documents sent to it by the Public Prosecutor`s Office at the Court of Appeal had been translated in good time, which the Public Prosecutor`s Office denied. After a series of further denials of both sides` allegations, as well as disciplinary measures against prosecutors, the Foreign Ministry`s translation service delivered the translation of the indictment into German on 15 September. In addition to the Siemens case, there are other cases in which the non-translation of the legal content has had negative consequences and often led to additional costs. A great recent example that we`ve already highlighted is the Legal Translator WhatsApp Tools, a new blog published today on the IALS Legal Translation Centre that examines the various tools that legal translators use in their profession. Click here to read more: But what can we learn from this case about the consequences of not translating legal content? It should also be noted that there is a translation service within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which, under the current legal framework, is responsible for the official translation of public and private documents. Foreign public documents from countries party to the 1961 Hague Convention, ratified in Greece by Law 1497/1984 (Official Gazette, Series I, No. 188), will only be translated if they bear an apostille in accordance with this Convention. All other foreign documents must be certified by the Greek consular authority of the country of origin of the document or by the consular authority of the country in Greece. How do I copy translations into the vocabulary trainer? Interpretation and translation before Greek courts in criminal proceedings is governed by Articles 233 to 238 of the Greek Code of Criminal Procedure.
Interpreters and translators are appointed by the competent court on the basis of the appropriate table drawn up each year by the Judicial Council of the Administrative Offences Tribunal and finalized by the Council of the Court of Appeal. For imperative reasons of urgency, interpreters not listed in the above tables are appointed. Translation Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Do you want to add words, phrases or translations? These phrases come from external sources and may not be accurate. bab.la is not responsible for their content. However, there is a database of members of the Panhellenic Association of Translators (members of the International Federation of Translators, FIT) who are professional translators (some of whom are also interpreters).