The Brazilian Supreme Court Comes to the Rescue of Translators!

Good, responsible legal translators always welcome guidance from members of the legal profession and we were more than pleased when, in late March 2012, we heard that the Supremo Tribunal Federal (colloquially, o Supremo, abbreviated STF), the Brazilian Supreme Court, had decided to prepare an English-Spanish-Portuguese glossary of legal terms and post it on its website.

Good, responsible legal translators always welcome guidance from members of the legal profession.

We paid a hopeful visit to the Court’s Portuguese website. The Portuguese welcome was a bit discouraging. It says the Glossary has 180 entries and was prepared with the cooperation of polyglot employees and interns of the Court’s Office of International Relations. No mention of a professional lexicographer, terminologist, translator, editor, or proofreader. Strange how people believe that speaking a foreign language makes you a translator, terminologist, or lexicographer and that proofreading is for the weak.

That was the first omen.

Then we read the Presentation to the Glossary, purportedly written in English, which includes this jewel of good style:

The thrust of the current work is placed within the vision of future of the Court itself: to be recognized as a reference Constitutional Court on the matter of fundamental rights assurance, on the moderation of federative conflicts and also on administrative management.

… and that was the second bad omen. Both were fully justified by our examination of the entries.

Because, unfortunately, most entries are little short of disastrous. Our discussion will be limited to three of them, on the belief that those three alone will suffice to show the general quality of the work.

Our first example is the entry for aborto. We see very little reason to include aborto in a 180-entry legal glossary, but that is of lesser importance. The entry itself is very poorly drafted: it explains what an aborto is and even touches on an STM decision regarding abortion, but fails to give a link to the Spanish or English translations, although the Glossary provides the Spanish here—with a link to the Portuguese. For the translation into English, you have to go elsewhere. Sorry!

Our second example is mandado de segurança. This one is a little better in that it provides both an explanation and translations into Spanish and English. We shall keep quiet about the Spanish translation. Although both of us understand Spanish, our knowledge of that language has not reached a level that qualifies us to give an opinion on the suggested translation Mandado de Seguridad. But our English is good enough to give an opinion on the English translation and we find Writ of Security absurd. It is not in Black’s VIII and we doubt it will be added in later editions. A mandado de segurança is the Brazilian counterpart to the Writ of Mandamus, although usage is a bit different. The mistranslation apparently arises from the fact that security does mean segurança in expressions such as airport security (segurança do aeroporto). Writ of security does appear in the Web—always in texts originating in Brazil, which is a little bit on the suspect side.

Then we have transitar em julgado. This entry does not carry an explanation. However it gives Spanish and English Translations. The English provided is transit in judgement. Now, then, may it please the court, we beg to differ. Transitar em julgado is to become final and unappelable. Something to do with res judicata. Google gives us three hits for transit in judgement: two from bad translations from Portuguese. That should raise some kind of suspicion.

We rest our case. We don’t want to bother you with more and more of the same.

We published the news of the Glosary in our blog and summoned our colleagues to write to the contact address provided in the website. Several colleagues came to our assistance and wrote short, respectful and objective messages pointing out errors and suggesting corrections. A few days later, we all received the same reply, politely thanking us for our interest. But nothing has been done so far. Apparently, the matter was dropped.

Some colleagues who know Spanish claim that what purports to be Spanish is just Portuñol, meaning an unwholesome admixture of Portuguese and Spanish. As far as we could see, they are right.

There are at least three decent English<>Portuguese legal dictionaries, none of which seems to have been consulted by the good people who created the Glossary. The three were written by respected people with law degrees from respected schools and experience in translating. The three of them confirm our opinions as given above.

• Castro, Marcílio Moreira de. (2010) Dicionário de Direito, Economia e Contabilidade, (2010), Known as Marcílio in Brazil. The newest and largest of all.
• Mello, Maria Chaves de. (2008) Mini dicionário jurídico português inglês. Known as Chaves de Mello in Brazil. More detailed than the mini in the title would let the reader believe. A classic, with several editions.
• La Touloubre, Marina Bevilacqua de, (2010). Dicionário Jurídico Bilíngue. Known as Marina in Brazil. Small, but useful.

… and they did it with taxpayer’s money!!!