The Language of the Law in Multilingual contexts—Unpicking the English of the EU Courts’ Judgments

Abstract

This brief article is based on a paper given at a workshop at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in London in June 2015. After outlining the salient features of the system for managing multilingualism at the Court of Justice of the European Union, the article focuses on some key influences on the English version of the Court’s judgments. It reviews the character of the French source text, the role of the Court’s lawyer linguists, the sources of the English, and the purpose and nature of the resulting product. By way of conclusion, it provides some insights into the impact of multilingualism on the Court’s decision-making process and on the texts the Court produces.