TRAINING ACTION FOR LEGAL PRACTITIONERS: LINGUISTIC SKILLS AND TRANSLATION IN EU COMPETITION LAW

The principal need we would like to satisfy is to give judges the means as so to overcome the undeniable linguistic barriers, that hurdle a better comprehension of EU Law in general, and of competition law in particular. By studying national case-law, it becomes clear that national judges don’t consider two fundamental aspects, the necessity to consult EU Law in languages different from the national one, and the opportunity to read, at least, case-law from other Member States. In most of cases, there isn’t any mention to others jurisdictions’ practices and case-law. Normally, different linguistic versions of EU Law are not considered. A multilingual and multicultural approach is the first mean so as to reach the fundamental target of uniform interpretation and application of EU Law. Both are justified by the same lack of linguistic skills or at least of confidence on one’s legal linguistic expertise. The best solution would be to insist on the learning of more than one languages. After some interviews with judges, exp. the ones charged with the organisation of the training and updating of judges, and linguists, it has become evident that it is impossible to offer complete training in more than one languages. In most cases, it would mean to start from beginners level. So, we concentrate our efforts in the most commonly used and known official language in the EU, namely English. This is very useful because: 1. Most of people know at least basic English and we can start directly from legal English; 2. English is a global language (lingua franca); 3. If national law and case law is (officially or unofficially) translated, the target language (TL) is most often English.