Martin Schubarth, Die Bedeutung der Mehrsprachigkeit der schweizerischen Gesetze für die höchstrichterliche Rechtsprechung, Gesetzgebung und Evaluation (LeGes) 2000, pp. 49-57
Martin Schubarth – Bedeutung der Mehrsprachigkeit
Background
The participation of court members of different native languages and their knowledge of the other official languages are essential for the administration of justice in a multilingual country. This is particularly the case in the highest courts because the lower courts are generally not multilingual and thus primarily oriented around the legal text in the official language of the respective canton.
The paper below from a former federal judge provides a vivid description of the process of determining the meaning of a legal text in multiple equivalent, equally binding language versions in a multilingual court. The judge assesses the benefit of multilingualism in determining the meaning of a norm as being well worth the extra trouble. Other authors however are more sceptical.
Summary
Multilingualism entails great potential for the judiciary. In multilingual texts there are always discrepancies, which occur despite exercising greatest care by the legal editors. A word by word translation that is accurate may be useless for stylistic reasons. The difficulties are even greater translating from one language family into another, such as from German into one of the Latin languages. It is possible that one language does not have terms that precisely correspond conceptually to terms in another language. Multilingualism thus inevitably creates ambiguity in legal norms which exist in the three language versions. This relativizes interpretation on the basis of wording. Particularly in a multilingual committee, differences can open the door to alternative interpretations. Furthermore, languages can change over time (examples: BGE 121 IV 293, 126 IV 269, 125 I 182, 124 II 85, 124 II 581). Finally, linguistic usances vary even within the German language itself (Germany vs. Switzerland vs. Austria).
Federal Supreme Court rulings are pronounced in one language only, thus the translations do not strictly have to be taken into account. Since 1939, only the legal summaries (Regesten) have been recorded in all three official languages. However, to avoid problems with translations of the legal summaries into other languages, the best practice is to consider the translation even before pronouncing the judgement.