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French to English translations [PRO] Law/Patents - Law (general)
French term or phrase:la jurisprudence qui a prévalu
Planning law stuff.
This is in a footnote.
"C’était les jurisprudences « AAA » et « BBB » qui prévalaient en la matière. CE 13 octobre 1932 AAA, req. n° 0000 : Une décision créatrice de droit illégale peut être rapportée par son auteur tant que le délai de recours contentieux n’est pas expiré ou que le juge, saisi d’un tel recours formé dans le délai légal, n’a pas statué – CE Ass 15 mars 1975 BBB, req. n° 0000 : le juge a ensuite admis le retrait d’une décision individuelle créatrice de droit illégale, tant qu’elle n’est pas devenue définitive, faute de publicité à l’égard des tiers, et alors qu’elle serait devenue définitive pour son destinataire auquel elle aurait été régulièrement notifiée. ... [and on and on ...]"
The meaning is clear. But what verb do we use with case law? "Prevail"? "Won out"? "Set a precedent"?
Actually if you search on "case law prevail" the results tend to be "case law which prevailed prior to...", so I suspect this English verb ain't the right one.
Incidentally, the text to which the footnote applies is:
"En outre, avant le 26 octobre 2001, date de la jurisprudence « Ternon », il convient de noter que l’administration n’avait pas connaissance de cette jurisprudence, bien que ses effets soient rétroactifs. Aussi, le respect du délai de retrait de quatre mois à compter de la délivrance de l’autorisation ne peut être garanti pour les autorisations qui pouvaient être retirées avant cette date."
I also have a slight niggle with the tense here: why not "... qui ont prévalu"? I'm assuming this is slightly flowery lawyerish "use of the imperfect when you really mean the perfect" to help convey the momentousness of the event. Because if the meaning is really the imperfect it is a whole other problem. The fact that dates are given is fairly conclusive: I surmise that this is a "perfect" meaning.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 52 mins (2021-02-11 19:47:45 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
the case law established by..., that applied
to fit the exact structure required by you
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2021-02-11 20:04:51 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
AAA and BBB are regarding two points of law relevant in the case in question, maybe -- adjust wording to fit.
Case law is the law created by the courts By deciding a disputed point of law a senior court (known as a court of record) can change or clarify the law, thereby setting a precedent which other courts are bound to follow or apply in later cases.
What do you make of the fact that the word here is "jurisprudences," plural, and it's referring to two specific cases?
To me, the fact that some sources translate "jurisprudence" as "case law" does not make it also a translation for "jurisprudences," plural. "Jurisprudences" means either of two things:
(1) Two or more sets of (whatever your preferred translation of the singular is: case law, jurisprudence, etc.)--for instance, les jurisprudences différentes des pays X et Y, jurisprudences européennes et nationales, etc.; or
(2) Cases/decisions/opinions (pick your preferred term).
I don't feel like making a late suggestion on this one but after having read all the remarks about case law, civil law countries, jurisprudence etc., I'm starting to think that the asker should keep the word "jurisprudence". After all, it exists in both English and French and with a very similar meaning. It also reminds the reader, who we can assume has at least reasonable legal knowledge, that we are talking about French decisions (and jurisprudence) rather than English decisions and case law
"Jurisprudence that prevailed" gets over 5,500 ghits so it is standard English and not some bastardization of the English language from Serbia or wherever.
Jurisprudence is the body of case law on a particular topic. A case is a decision rendered by a judge or justice of the peace after hearing all of the sides to a dispute. The structure of modern judicial decisions follows a standard format: The style of cause containing the names of the parties (e.g. R v Sparrow).
Legal Research – Case Law and the Canadian Abridgement
It means that any "translation", in the broad sense, of civil law concepts into common law concepts will almost certaintly not be tested in court (because of a competent court clause), so the English translation constitutes an interpretation of French law that necessarily might be considered legally wrong, or legally right. Yerman's box with the cat in it!!! At last a use for that stupid box concept!
I don't understand your last post (re in the event of a conflict of laws). What has that got to do with this translation? *ETA* I just realized what you meant (in the event of a conflict... X law prévaudra).
Again, that doesn't mean that "apply" is the right translation here. It's not automatically what "prévaloir" in a legal context should be translated by. And "control" is perfect for contractual conflict-of-laws provisions, but it wouldn't work at all for Mpoma's translation, because French court decisions do not "control" anything (apart from the actual case the decision was made in).
...a conflict of laws" -- how many times have we all typed that? In the real world, the French (mostly 100% of the time, in fact) or the English version of the Court's ruling will be applicable, and the rest, to badly translate, is literature.
Right, as you and your cite say, "case law" and "jurisprudence" are not the same thing. They're clearly quite similar, but that doesn't mean that one is automatically a good translation for the other.
And, of course, even if they were generally good translations for each other, that doesn't mean "case law" is the right translation for "les jurisprudences" here (when it's referring not to la jurisprudence in general, but to two specific cases).
The other reason I didn't agree with your proposed translation is that you rendered "prévalaient" as "applied." I explained in my translation, so won't waste space repeating it here, how I read it.
@Mpoma, I agree with you that "en la matière" in a legal text generally means "in this area (of the law)" or "on this (legal) issue." Given the specificity of the rules set forth in those cases ("une décision créatrice de droit illégale" etc.), I would go with the latter, because that rule is a very specific legal issue and not an entire area of law.
As for precedents, they don't really exist in civil-law systems. Lower courts are not required to follow the decisions of higher courts: "aucune règle ne fait obstacle à ce qu' un juge rende un jugement contraire à un principe formulé par la juridiction la plus élevée dans la hiérarchie judiciaire..." https://www.dictionnaire-juridique.com/definition/jurisprude...
In common-law systems, appellate judges make law because their decisions are binding on lower courts in the same jurisdiction hearing cases on the same issue. In civil-law cases, judges do not make law. The term "precedents" is misleading because to EN-speaking ears, we think it means binding precedent... but it doesn't.
Well-reasoned decisions DO influence lower-court judges in FR. The AAA & BBB cases here must have been influential, even though they weren't binding.
If this were about a common-law jurisdiction, esp. the US, I'd suggest "the AAA and BBB line of cases." In common-law jurisdictions, Case XYZ decides ABC point of law; then later cases cite Case XYZ; then even later cases cite both them and Case XYZ. That entire set of cases would then be called the "XYZ line of cases." The term is used here: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_education/programs...
Civil-law jurisdictions don't work that way, because later judges are not actually bound by the decisions of earlier judges. They do tend to follow the general trend of higher courts, but unlike in the US/UK, they're not required to. You could still end up with a "line of cases," but in your text, it sounds like it's just citing to those two cases, AAA and BBB--we don't know if there's a line of later cases citing them or not. And the phrase "date de la jurisprudence Ternon" tells me they're using the term to mean a specific decision (which has a date), not a line of cases.
... except "en la matière" translates as "in this area (of the law)" because precedents are significant with respect to any and all future cases in the same area of law.
it was fairly certain that AAA and BBB ought to be specific cases. Nothing else would fit.
It does happen that cases are often referred by the name of only one of the parties - so these names are in fact cases.
If you call these two cases "the most relevant precedents ..." ("precedents" does makes sense in plural, "case law" NOT) you have no need for any mention of "case law" - the concept is already implicitly included when a case is being called "a precedent".
Alternatively "case law decisions" suggested by AllegroTrans would also make sense / fit in.
AAA and BBB are parties in the cases which gave rise to the case law in question, and thus have been adopted as shorthand for the case law rulings themselves. I'm sure you're familiar with what I'm talking about. You can see an instance later on where I didn't bother disguising things: "la jurisprudence « Ternon »". I probably didn't need to disguise things this way. OTOH you never know, because search engines get everywhere and I'd prefer clients generally not to find out inadvertently that a translator has been asking questions.
I'm pretty confident the answer to this is "The case of law of AAA and BBB set precedents in this area". No-one else seems to agree. I'd really like to know your opinion.
Take a look randomly at the sizeable fraction of "general purpose / context free" answers to almost any Proz question and you'll have your answer ... (just don't try to "verify" it by ghits!)
Or for this question, not noticing that in this ST what you can actually find in it is "les jurisprudences", not "la jurisprudence" - that's surely "translating THIS Source Text"?
I saw that you were disagreeing and commenting yet again about ghits and MT replacing us all.
Although ghits is not exactly MT, I thought it would be interesting to see what Google Translate makes of "la jurisprudence qui a prévalu" and compare that to your suggestion
Google Translate: the case law that prevailed
Daryo: in this matter, it's (the rulings from) the cases AAA and BBB that were relevant / applicable
If I were you, I'd have a good rethink about ghits and MT
Automatic update in 00:
Answers
57 mins confidence:
the case law that predominated/that was predominant
Explanation: I think this is saying that the case law of the AAA and BBB predominated, i.e. theses were the cases considered most relevant (possibly from among others - it's not uncommon for a whole raft of case law to be submitted by the parties' lawyers)
AllegroTrans United Kingdom Local time: 00:55 Specializes in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 1355
11 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +2
the case law that applied
Explanation:
Simple as, I think.
Decent amount of ghits.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 52 mins (2021-02-11 19:47:45 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
the case law established by..., that applied
to fit the exact structure required by you
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2021-02-11 20:04:51 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
AAA and BBB are regarding two points of law relevant in the case in question, maybe -- adjust wording to fit.
Case law is the law created by the courts By deciding a disputed point of law a senior court (known as a court of record) can change or clarify the law, thereby setting a precedent which other courts are bound to follow or apply in later cases.
What is case law? - ICLR
Conor McAuley France Local time: 01:55 Specializes in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 210