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ABSTRACT
There is rapidly developing interest in legal coding, the development of machine-consumable code representations of legal rules. However, interpretive ambiguities inherent in legal rules make it challenging to directly translate law into code. Interpretive ambiguities pose challenges for legal coders, who must determine the extent to which they disambiguate rules, as well as the interpretive methods applied. Similar interpretive issues have been historically addressed in the field of legal translation. This paper argues that a legal translation framework, known as the principle of fidelity, can be used to better understand and resolve interpretive ambiguities inherent in the legal coding process. Three models of fidelity prominently discussed in legal translation literature are adapted and applied to legal coding. Accordingly, the application of fidelity models to the legal coding process could provide new understanding and methods to address complex interpretive ambiguities.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
2 Rasheed S Al-Jarrah, Ahmad M Abu-Dalu and Hisham Obiedat, ‘Translation of Strategic Ambiguity: A Relevance-Theoretic Analysis’ (2018) 54 Poznan Stud. Contemp. Linguist. 1, 1.
3 James Mohun and Alex Roberts, ‘Cracking the Code: Rulemaking for Humans and Machines’ 7.
4 Ibid 8, 38–51; Anna-Sophie Novak, Verena Huber and Shefali Virkar, ‘Digital Legislation: Quo Vadis?’, DG.O2021: The 22nd Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (ACM 2021) 515 <https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3463677.3463702> accessed 31 March 2022.
5 See, e.g. Digitaliseringsstyrelsen [Agency for Digitisation], ‘Evaluering Af Indsatsen for at Gøre Lovgivningen Digitaliseringsklar [Evaluation of the Effort to Make Legislation Digital-Ready]’ (Ministry of Finance, Denmark 2021); Digitaliseringsstyrelsen [Agency for Digitisation], ‘Guidance on Digital-Ready Legislation – on Incorporating Digitisation and Implementation in the Preparation of Legislation’ <https://en.digst.dk/media/20206/en_guidance-regarding-digital-ready-legislation-2018.pdf>.
6 Digital NSW, ‘Rules as Code – Test, Learn, Repeat’ (Digital.NSW, 21 May 2019) <https://www.digital.nsw.gov.au/article/rules-code-test-learn-repeat> accessed 28 August 2020; Claire Daniel and Richard Barry, ‘Integrating Rules as Code into the Planning System’ (28 February 2022) <https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/integrating-rules-code-planning-system-claire-daniel/?trk=articles_directory>; Commonwealth of Australia (Digital Transformation Agency), ‘Vision 2025’.
7 Digital.govt.nz, ‘Better Rules for Government’ (Department of Internal Affairs, New Zealand Government 2018) Discovery Report <https://www.digital.govt.nz/dmsdocument/95-better-rules-for-government-discovery-report/html,-pseudocode-and-software-code#examples-of-legislation,-pseudocode-and-software-code> accessed 4 August 2020.
8 See infra Section II.
9 See, e.g. Anna Huggins and others, ‘The Legal and Coding Challenges of Digitising Commonwealth Legislation: Select Senate Committee on Financial Technology and Regulatory Technology Issues Paper Submission’ (Select Senate Committee on Financial Technology and Regulatory Technology, Parliament of Australia) Issues Paper Submission 2, 9–10, 16; Mireille Hildebrandt, ‘Algorithmic Regulation and the Rule of Law’ (2018) 376 Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Math. Phys. Eng. Sci. 20170355, 2.
10 That is, choose a particular interpretation to code, at the cost of allowing other valid interpretations.
11 See, e.g. Mohun and Roberts (n 3) 92–94; Digital.govt.nz, Better Rules for Government (Discovery Report, Department of Internal Affairs, New Zealand Government, March 2018) 21 <https://www.digital.govt.nz/dmsdocument/95-better-rules-for-government-discovery-report/html,-pseudocode-and-software-code#examples-of-legislation,-pseudocode-and-software-code>. See also below n 22.
12 The Swiss Cantons choose their own official languages and differ from each other and the Confederate in this sense: Bundesverfassung der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft vom 18 April 1999 [Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation of 18 April 1999] SR 101 (Switzerland) art 70(2); Felix Uhlmann and Stefan Höfler, ‘Multilingual Legislative Drafting in Swiss Cantons: Burden or Blessing?’ [2018] Loophole – J. Commonw. Assoc. Legis. Couns. 54; See also Stefan Höfler, Markus Nussbaumer and Felix Uhlmann, ‘Legislation in Switzerland’ in Ulrich Karpen and Helen Xanthaki (eds), Legislation in Europe: A Country by Country Guide (Hart Publishing 2020) <https://www.bloomsburyprofessional.com/uk/legislation-in-europe-9781509924707/> accessed 19 October 2021.
13 Uhlmann and Höfler (n 12) 55–58.
14 Bundesverfassung der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft vom 18 April 1999 [Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation of 18 April 1999] SR 101 (Switzerland) art 70(1).
15 Uhlmann and Höfler (n 12) 56–58; Andreas Lötscher, ‘Multilingual Law Drafting in Switzerland’ in Günther Grewendorf and Monika Rathert (eds), Formal Linguistics and Law (De Gruyter, Inc 2009) 385 <http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/detail.action?docID=476038> accessed 19 October 2021.
16 Regulation No 1 determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community [1958] OJ 17/385; [1958] OJ Spec Ed 59, art 1.
17 Agnieszka Doczekalska, ‘Legal Languages in Contact: EU Legislative Drafting and Its Consequences for Judicial Interpretation’ in Silvia Marino and others (eds), Language and Law: The Role of Language and Translation in EU Competition Law 168–169.
18 See ibid 168–172; Carolyn Ban, Management and Culture in an Enlarged European Commission: From Diveristy to Unity? (Palgrave Macmillan 2013) 203–205.
19 See Skatteministeriet v Aktieselskabet Forsikrinsselskabet Codan (C-236/97) [1998] ECR I-8679. See also Skoma-Lux sro v Celní ředitelství Olomouc (C-161/06) [2007] ECR I-10841, where it was held that a measure has no effect against citizens of a member state until it is published in the official language of that member state.
20 See, e.g. Daniel Gile, ‘Variability in the Perception of Fidelity in Simultaneous Interpretation’ [1999] HERMES – J. Lang. Commun. Bus. 51; Susan Šarčević, New Approach To Legal Translation (1st Edition, Kluwer Law International 1997); Wanfang Zhang and Xiangxin Liu, ‘After Fidelity: Deconstructionist Translation Theory & Deconstruction of Cultural Translation’ (Atlantis Press 2015) <https://www.atlantis-press.com/proceedings/ermm-15/20883> accessed 5 September 2023; Susan Šarčević, ‘Creativity in Legal Translation: How Much Is Too Much?’, Translation in Context: Selected Contributions from the EST Congress, Granada, 1998 (John Benjamins Publishing 2000).
21 See, e.g. Šarčević, New Approach To Legal Translation (n 20) 23–37; Alyssa Charles-Green, ‘Law Translation: A Self-Defence Case Study’ (2019) 25 Comp. Law J. Pac. 179, 183. See also infra section 3.1.
22 Matthew Waddington, ‘Rules as Code’ (2020) 37 Law Context Socio-Leg. J. 179, 182–183.
23 1981 (UK).
24 Marek Sergot and others, ‘The British Nationality Act as a Logic Program’ (1986) 29 Commun. ACM 370, 371. Note that Sergot et al. did not solely adhere to a literal reading however, and considered the intended meaning of the act where a literal interpretation appears clearly incorrect. ibid 380.
25 Mohun and Roberts (n 3) 92.
26 See, e.g. ‘The rules we can currently code effectively are prescriptive — black or white, yes or no.’: Tim de Sousa and Pia Andrews, ‘When We Code the Rules on Which Our Society Runs, We Can Create Better Results and New Opportunities for the Public and Regulators, and Companies Looking to Make Compliance Easier’, The Mandarin (online, 1 October 2019) <https://www.themandarin.com.au/116681-when-machines-are-coding-the-rules-on-which-our-society-runs-we-get-better-results-new-opportunities-for-the-public-and-regulators-and-companies-looking-to-make-compliance-easier/>;
Common themes emerged around a desire to automate and standardise planning decision making for development that is highly prescriptive and code based … statewide prescriptive development standard for low-risk development – was seen as a low hanging fruit for coding planning rules in NSW due to its format being highly prescriptive codes that can be interpreted into a “yes” or “no” compliance check.
27 See, e.g. the increasing level of RegTech expenditure domestically and abroad: Deloitte, ‘RegTech Business Cases 2021’ <https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/lu/Documents/technology/lu-regtech-business-cases-compilation-2021.pdf>.
28 Digitaliseringsstyrelsen [Agency for Digitisation], ‘Evaluering Af Indsatsen for at Gøre Lovgivningen Digitaliseringsklar [Evaluation of the Effort to Make Legislation Digital-Ready]’ (n 7); Digitaliseringsstyrelsen [Agency for Digitisation], ‘Guidance on Digital-Ready Legislation – on Incorporating Digitisation and Implementation in the Preparation of Legislation’ (n 5).
29 See, e.g. Digital NSW (n 6); Daniel and Barry (n 6).
30 Interestingly, the vast majority of computer science students (>80%) also supported using their encodings as a decider in court cases to reduce the workload of the judiciary, while none of the law students agreed to this: Nel Escher and Jeffrey Bilik, ‘Cod(e)Ifying The Law’ (ProLaLa Programming Languages and the Law, 16 January 2022) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx-I4DD8u7Y>00:14:35-00:15:45.
31 Tom Barraclough, Hamish Fraser, and Curtis Barnes (n 26) 160.
32 See, e.g., Kevin D Ashley, Artificial Intelligence and Legal Analytics: New Tools for Law Practice in the Digital Age (Cambridge University Press 2017) 39–56 <https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/artificial-intelligence-and-legal-analytics/E7D705EEF392501A1DB180645917E7E0> accessed 12 May 2021; Melissa Perry, ‘iDecide: Administrative Decision-Making in the Digital World’ (2017) 91 Aust. Law J. 29, 32–33; Layman E Allen and C Saxon, ‘Some Problems in Designing Expert Systems to Aid Legal Reasoning’, ICAIL ’87 (1987); Matthew Waddington, ‘Vagueness/Ambiguity in Legislative Drafting’ (Drafting the law, 12 September 2021) <https://legislativedrafter.wordpress.com/2021/09/12/vagueness-ambiguity-in-legislative-drafting/> accessed 11 December 2021; Huggins and others (n 9); Hildebrandt (n 9) 2–3.
33 Adriana Belletti and Luigi Rizzi, Interview with Noam Chomsky, ‘An Interview on Minimalism’ (10 October 2002), published in Noam Chomsky, On Nature and Language (Adriana Belletti and Luigi Rizzi eds, Cambridge University Press 2002) 92, 106–107 <http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/detail.action?docID=221058> accessed 23 April 2022; Shaidah Jusoh, ‘A Study on NLP Applications and Ambiguity Problems’ (2018) 96 J. Theor. Appl. Inf. Technol. 1486; Indeed, some argue that ambiguity is not just inherent, but a beneficial aspect of natural-language communication. See, e.g. Steven T Piantadosi, Harry Tily and Edward Gibson, ‘The Communicative Function of Ambiguity in Language’ (2012) 122 Cognition 280.
34 Sergot and others (n 24) 371–372.
35 See, e.g. Anna Huggins and others, ‘Digitising Legislation: Connecting Regulatory Mind-Sets and Constitutional Values’ (2022) 14 Law Innov. Technol. 325, 337; Huggins and others (n 9) 2, 9–10, 16; Hildebrandt (n 9) 2; Ashley (n 32) 51–52.
36 See, e.g. Huggins and others (n 9) 2, 9–10, 16; Hildebrandt (n 9) 2.
37 See, e.g. Stanley A de Smith, De Smith’s Judicial Review of Administrative Action (JM Evans ed, 4th edn, Stevens and Sons Ltd 1980) 278, as quoted in: Wendy Lacey, ‘Judicial Discretion and Human Rights: Expanding the Role of International Law in the Domestic Sphere’ (2004) 5 Melb. J. Int. Law 108.
38 See, e.g. the encoding of common law factors to establish a threshold at which a subjective condition is considered satisfied for the purposes of the code: Escher and Bilik (n 30) 00-13:00–00:14:35.
39 See New South Wales v Commonwealth (1915) 20 CLR 54; R v Kirby; Ex parte Boilermaker’s Society of Australia (1956) 94 CLR 254; Abebe v Commonwealth [1999] HCA 14, [140]. See also, e.g. Murray Gleeson, ‘Courts and the Rule of Law’ (2001).
40 See, e.g. the encoding of discretionary conditions as Boolean values which require human input: Escher and Bilik (n 32) 00:12:40–00:13:00; Huggins and others (n 9) 17.
41 See, e.g. ambiguity arising regarding whether a modal is epistemic or deontic in nature: Dallin D Oaks, Structural Ambiguity in English: An Applied Grammatical Inventory (Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 2012) 87–95 <http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/detail.action?docID=1748427> accessed 11 April 2022; The various linguistic ambiguities can also be broken into further categories. See, e.g. Lijun Yang, ‘The Disambiguation and Application of the English Syntactic Ambiguity’ (Atlantis Press 2014) <https://www.atlantis-press.com/proceedings/icelaic-14/12531> accessed 11 April 2022.
42 See, e.g. Roland Hausser, Foundations of Computational Linguistics (3rd edn Springer, 2014) 240.
43 Ibid 240–241.
44 For further analysis of anaphoric ambiguities in natural language, see, e.g., Hui Yang et al., ‘Analysing Anaphoric Ambiguity in Natural Language Requirements’ (2011) 16(3) Requirements Engineering 163; See also Hausser (n 42) 111; Dallin D Oaks, Structural Ambiguity in English: An Applied Grammatical Inventory (Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2012) 267–292 <http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/detail.action?docID=1748427> (‘Structural Ambiguity in English’).
45 See, e.g., Hausser (n 42) 240–241.
46 See, e.g. Höfler’s finding of similarities between legislative drafting guidelines with controlled natural language guidelines. Stefan Höfler, ‘Legislative Drafting Guidelines: How Different Are They from Controlled Language Rules for Technical Writing?’ in Tobias Kuhn and Norbert E Fuchs (eds), Controlled Natural Language (Springer 2012).
47 Ashley (n 32) 38–56.
48 Ibid 39–42.
49 Such as, for example, discretionary clauses involving terms such as ‘likely’, ‘reasonable’, etc.
50 That is, the potential for multiple possible meanings given to a word or phrase.
51 Allen and Saxon (n 32).
52 Ashley (n 32) 46.
53 Rudy Engholm, ‘Logic and Laws: Relief from Statutory Obfuscation’ (1976) 9 Univ. Mich. J. Law Reform 322, 324–327.
54 Alice Witt and others, ‘Converting Copyright Legislation into Machine-Executable Code: Interpretation, Coding Validation and Legal Alignment’, Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law (Association for Computing Machinery 2021) 144–146 <https://doi.org/10.1145/3462757.3466083> accessed 22 November 2021.
55 See, e.g. Ashley (n 32) 40; Waddington (n 32).
56 See, e.g. Murray Gleeson, ‘Statutory Interpretation’ (Taxation Institute of Australia: 24th National Convention, Doltone House, Sydney, 11 March 2009) 9, 12–13.
57 Eric M Eisenberg, ‘Ambiguity as Strategy in Organizational Communication’ (1984) 51 Commun. Monogr. 227.
58 See, e.g. Engholm (n 53) 327 n 16.
59 Jeffrey Barnes, ‘When “Plain Language” Legislation Is Ambiguous -- Sources of Doubt and Lessons for the Plain Language Movement’ (2010) 34 Melb. Univ. Law Rev. 671, 680–683.
60 (1994) 53 FCR 287.
61 As inserted by the Community Services and Health Legislation Amendment Act 1990 (Cth) s 29.
62 Quoted in Barnes (n 59) 680.
63 Office of Parliamentary Counsel, ‘Plain English Manual’ 20.
64 Norbis v Norbis (1986) 161 CLR 513 at 519-520; Riddell v Secretary Department of Social Security (1993) 42 FCR 443 at 449; cited in Smoker v Pharmacy Restructuring Authority (1994) 53 FCR 287 at 290, 299-300; Barnes (n 59).
65 Smoker v Pharmacy Restructuring Authority (1994) 53 FCR 287, 289-291.
66 Ibid 290-291, 300-301.
67 This is because, inherently, a literal coder would strive to merely convert natural language to code without letting their subjective interpretation influence the task. Hence, faced with two contradictory provisions, a strictly literal coder has no choice but to encode both provisions.
68 The notion of ‘predictability’ as a facet of the rule of law has been affirmed throughout history. See, e.g. John Locke, Two Treatises (Awnsham Churchill 1689) s §137 <https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/john-locke-two-treatises-1689> accessed 23 August 2020; Friedrich Hayek, Rules and Order, vol 1 (University of Chicago Press 1973) 118. See also Jeremy Waldron, ‘The Rule of Law’ in Edward N Zalta (ed), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University 2020) <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/rule-of-law/> accessed 23 August 2020.
69 Graham Priest, In Contradiction (Oxford University Press, Incorporated 2006) 187 <http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/detail.action?docID=716784> accessed 1 April 2022.
70 For example, the prevailing of a Commonwealth law over a state law to the extent of an inconsistency: Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia s 109.
71 As provided for by s 15AA of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (Cth).
72 That is, the notion that a latter law should supersede earlier laws in cases of contradictions.
73 Priest (n 69) 187.
74 Ibid.
75 Graeme Hill, ‘Resolving a True Conflict Between State Laws: A Minimalist Approach’ (2005) 29 39.
76 Ibid 42–61.
77 (1998) 194 CLR 355.
78 Note, however, that the ‘modern approach to statutory interpretation’ as a term was first coined a year prior by the High Court in CIC Insurance Ltd v Bankstown Football Club Ltd (1997) 187 CLR 384.
79 Project Blue Sky Inc v Australian Broadcasting Authority (1998) 194 CLR 355, 381-382; see also Institute of Patent Agents v Lockwood [1894] AC 347 (HL).
80 Project Blue Sky Inc v Australian Broadcasting Authority (1998) 194 CLR 355, 381–382.
81 Similar concerns arise over attempting to emulate the judiciary’s approach to interpretation in a legal translation context. See, e.g. Wai Yee Emily Poon, ‘The Cultural Transfer In Legal Translation’ (2005) 18 Int. J. Semiot. Law 307, 322.
82 Peter Cane, Controlling Administrative Power: An Historical Comparison (Cambridge University Press 2016) 236, quoted in Anna Huggins, ‘Addressing Disconnection: Automated Decision-Making, Administrative Law and Regulatory Reform’ (2021) 44 Univ. New South Wales Law J. 1048.
83 See, e.g. Tom Barraclough, Hamish Fraser, and Curtis Barnes (n 26) 3, 11, 17, 74, 106.
84 Specialised translation refers to the translation of ‘specialised’ texts which require special knowledge outside of a typical translator’s expertise, such as legal texts, scientific texts, religious texts, etc.
85 See, e.g. Giuliana Garzone, ‘Legal Translation and Functionalist Approaches: A Contradiction in Terms?’, La traduction juridique: histoire, théorie(s) et pratique [Legal translation: history, theories and pradtice] (Association suisse des traducteurs, terminologues et interprètes [Swiss Association of Translators, Terminologists and Interpreters] 2000) 395.
86 Lawrence Solan, ‘The Interpretation of Multilingual Statutes by the European Court of Justice’ (2009) 34 Brooklyn J. Int. Law 277, 279–280.
87 Charles-Green (n 21) 183.
88 See, e.g. Šarčević, New Approach To Legal Translation (n 20) 23–53 for a historical review of legal translation.
89 Schweizerisches Zivilgesetzbuch [Swiss Civil Code] (Switzerland).
90 Šarčević, New Approach To Legal Translation (n 20) 37–40; Charles-Green (n 21) 183.
91 Šarčević, New Approach To Legal Translation (n 20) 36–40; Charles-Green (n 21) 183–184.
92 See, e.g. Eugene A Nida, ‘Science of Translation’ (1969) 45 Language 483; Eugene A Nida and Charles R Taber, The Theory and Practice of Translation (E J Brill 1969); Eugene Albert Nida, Toward a Science of Translating: With Special Reference to Principles and Procedures Involved in Bible Translating (EJ Brill 1964); See also Šarčević, New Approach To Legal Translation (n 20) 34–53.
93 Official Languages Act, RSC 1985, c 31, s 2.
94 Šarčević, ‘Creativity in Legal Translation: How Much Is Too Much?’ (n 20) 287.
95 Rafat Y Alwazna, ‘Important Translation Strategies Used in Legal Translation: Examples of Hooper’s Translation of the Ottoman Majalla into English’, The Ashgate Handbook of Legal Translation (Routledge 2016) 240; Šarčević, ‘Creativity in Legal Translation: How Much Is Too Much?’ (n 20) 290.
96 Malcolm Harvey, ‘What’s so Special about Legal Translation?’ (2002) 47 Meta J. Trad. Meta Transl. J. 177, 180.
97 Anton Popovič, ‘Aspects of Metatext’ [1976] Can. Rev. Comp. Lit. 225; Anton Popovič, La Scienza Della Traduzione: Aspetti Metodologici, La Comunicazione Traduttiva [The Science of Translation: Methods and Translation as a Form of Communication] (Bruno Osimo tr, Casa Editrice Hoepli 1975).
98 Michelle Mannoni, ‘Challenging the Existence of Legal Translation: A Comprehensive Translation Theory’ (2016) 26 Comp. Legilinguistics Int. J. Leg. Commun. 99, 112; Popovič (n 97) 226–227.
99 Mannoni (n 100) 109–110.
100 See also Harvey (n 96) 180–181; Nicholas Kasirer, ‘François Gény’s Libre Recherche Scientifique as a Guide for Legal Translation’ (2001) 61 La. Law Rev. 331, 341; Matt Hammond, ‘A New Wind of Quality from Europe: Implications of the Court Case Cited by Holz-Mänttäri for the U.S. Translation Industry’, Translation and the Law (John Benjamins Publishing) 238–239.
101 See, e.g. Susan Šarčević, ‘Legal Translation and Translation Theory: A Receiver-Oriented Approach’, La traduction juridique: Histoire, theorie(s) et pratique / Legal translation, history, theory/ies, and practice (2000).
102 Ibid 3; See also Janny HC Leung, ‘The Object of Fidelity in Translating Multilingual Legislation’ [2014] Semiotica 223, 226.
103 See, e.g. Šarčević, New Approach To Legal Translation (n 20) 24–28; Phillip Heck, Übersetzungsprobleme Im Frühen Mittelalter [Translation Problems in the Early Middle Ages] (Tübingen 1931) 4–11; cited in Šarčević, New Approach To Legal Translation (n 20).
104 Poon (n 81) 322.
105 Mona Baker, In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation (Taylor & Francis Group 2018) 10–52 <http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uql/detail.action?docID=5306316> accessed 17 February 2022.
106 Ibid 53–93.
107 Ibid 94–133.
108 Ibid 134–234.
109 See, e.g. Morteza Abdi Saroukhil, Omid Ghalkhani and Ali Hashemi, ‘A Critical Review of Translation: A Look Forward’ (2018) 6 Int. J. Educ. Lit. Stud. 104; Šarčević, New Approach To Legal Translation (n 20) 55; Nida (n 92); Nida and Taber (n 92) 12.
110 See, e.g. Emperor Justinian’s directive that Greek translations be word-for-word in order to emulate the Christian notion that the Scriptures were the literal word of God: Šarčević, New Approach To Legal Translation (n 20) 25.
111 Ibid 37–38.
112 Ibid 38–39.
113 WE Weisflog, ‘Problems of Legal Translation’, Rapports suisses presented au XIXe Congrès international de droit comparé [Swiss Reports Presented at the XIXth International Congress of Comparative Law] (Schulthess Verlag 1987) 191; cited in Šarčević, ‘Legal Translation and Translation Theory: A Receiver-Oriented Approach’ (n 101).
114 Weisflog (n 113) 195; quoted in Brenda Yaling Chen and Tze-wei Chen, ‘Enhancing the Quality of Court Interpretation -- A Functionalist Approach’ (2013) 6 Compil. Transl. Rev. 99.
115 Emmanuel Didier, Langues et Langages Du Droit : Etude Comparative Des Modes d’expression de La Common Law et Du Droit Civil, En Francais et En Anglais [Languages and Languages of Law: A Comparative Study of the Modes of Expression of Common Law and Civil Law, in French and in English] (Wilson & Lafleur 1990) 280, 285, cited in Šarčević, ‘Legal Translation and Translation Theory: A Receiver-Oriented Approach’ (n 101).
116 Basil Hatim and Ian Mason, The Translator as Communicator (1st edn, Routledge 1996) 26, 150–155.
117 Ibid 23–24.
118 Ibid 26, 150–151.
119 Ibid 150–155.
120 Ibid 160.
121 See, e.g. Höfler (n 46); See also Morris’ identification of legislation as predominantly employing a declarative language: Jason Patrick Morris, ‘Spreadsheets for Legal Reasoning: The Continued Promise of Declarative Logic Programming in Law’ (Masters of Laws, University of Alberta 2020) 9–10.
122 Šarčević, New Approach To Legal Translation (n 20) 87.
123 Ibid 88–89.
124 Ibid 72.
125 Poon (n 81) 321–322.
126 CJW (Jaap) Baaij, ‘EU Translation and the Burden of Legal Knowledge’ in Susan Šarčević (ed), Language and Culture in EU Law: Multidisciplinary Perspectives (1st edn, Routledge 2015) 115.
127 Ibid 114–115; See also Leon Wolff, ‘Legal Translation’ in Kirsten Malmkjær and Kevin Windle (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Translation Studies (Oxford University Press 2011) 238 <https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199239306.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199239306> accessed 25 April 2021.
128 A concept known within translation literature as ‘Funktionskonstanz’ [functional constancy].
129 A concept known within translation literature as ‘Funktionsänderung’ [functional change].
130 Didier (n 115) 280, 285; cited in Šarčević, ‘Legal Translation and Translation Theory: A Receiver-Oriented Approach’ (n 101); Weisflog (n 113) 191; cited in Šarčević, ‘Legal Translation and Translation Theory: A Receiver-Oriented Approach’ (n 101); Weisflog (n 113) 195; cited in Chen and Chen (n 114); Hatim and Mason (n 116) 150–155.
131 See, e.g. Zheng Wang, ‘Introduction of Functionalism and Functional Translation Theory’ (Atlantis Press 2018) 623 <https://www.atlantis-press.com/proceedings/ssehr-17/25891687> accessed 1 February 2022.
132 German for ‘Skopos Theory’.
133 See, e.g. Katharina Reiß and Hans J Vermeer, Towards a General Theory of Translational Action: Skopos Theory Explained (Routledge 2013) 90–91, 93; Christiane Nord, Translating as a Purposeful Activity: Functionalist Approaches Explained (2nd edn, Routledge 2018) 26–27.
134 HJ Vermeer, ‘Skopos and Commission in Translational Action’ in Lawrence Venuti and Mona Baker (eds), Andrew Chesterman (tr), The Translation Studies Reader (Routledge 2000) 221.
135 Reiß and Vermeer (n 133) 90–93; Nord (n 133) 29–30.
136 See, e.g. Nord (n 133) 113.
137 See, e.g. Reiß and Vermeer (n 133) 142–143, 163; HJ Vermeer, ‘Ubersetzen Als Kultureller Transfer [Translation as a Cultural Transfer]’ in Mary Snell-Hornby (ed), Ubersetzungswis senschaft – Ein Neuorientierung, Zur Integrierung von Theorie und Praxix [Translation Science – A Reorientation, to integrate theory and practice] (Uni-Taschenbücher 1986) 34, cited in Garzone (n 85) 396; Gerhard Obenaus, ‘The Legal Translator as Information Broker’ in Marshall Morris (ed), Translation and the Law (John Benjamins Publishing Company 1995) 250–253.
138 See, e.g. Anna Trosborg, ‘“Acts” in Contracts: Some Guidelines for Translation’ in Mary Snell-Hornby, Franz Pöchhacker and Klaus Kaindl (eds), Translation Studies: An Interdiscipline: Selected papers from the Translation Studies Congress, Vienna, 1992 (John Benjamins Publishing Company 1994); Šarčević, New Approach To Legal Translation (n 20) 18–19, 65–66, 71; Šarčević, ‘Legal Translation and Translation Theory: A Receiver-Oriented Approach’ (n 101) 2; Dorte Madsen, ‘Towards a Description of Communication in the Legal Universe: Translation of Legal Texts and the Skopos Theory’ (1997) 19 Fachspr. Int. J. Spec. Commun. 17, cited in Šarčević, ‘Legal Translation and Translation Theory: A Receiver-Oriented Approach’ (n 101) 2; Ling Wang and King Kui Sin, ‘Toward a Clarification of the Concept of Cultural Transfer in Legal Translation’ (2011) 1 Int. J. Law Lang. Discourse 67; For discussion on other specialised text genres, see also Nord (n 133) 110–112, 126; Benjamin Stephen Green, ‘A Skopos-Based Analysis of Breytenbach’s Titus Andronicus’ (Stellenbosch University 2012) 108–112; Christina Schäffner, ‘Functionalist Approaches’ in Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanha (eds), Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (3rd edn, Routledge 2019) 115 120–121.
139 See, e.g. Šarčević, New Approach To Legal Translation (n 20) 18.
140 Baaij (n 126) 109, 111, 113–114; FDE Schleiermacher, ‘On the Different Methods of Translating’ in L Venuti (ed), S Bernofsky, (tr), The Translation Studies Reader (2md edn, Routledge 2004); cited in Baaij (n 126).
141 This follows as an application of the overly formalistic historical translatory approaches to the task of legal coding. The notion that such a ‘true representation’ of the legislation as a standalone document exists and can definitively be determined is one which aligns with approaches which view the legal coding exercise as an objective one.
142 Such as a section, regulation, clause, etc.
143 Such as a file, directory, etc.
144 Deborah Cao, Translating Law (Multilingual Matters 2007) 28–29.
145 Hanem El-Sayed Aly El-Farahaty, ‘Problems of Translating Legal Discourse with Special Reference to the United Nations Documents’ (University of Leeds 2011) 123.
146 Baker (n 105) 77–87.
147 See, e.g. Mohun and Roberts (n 3) 94; Digital.govt.nz (n 7) 21; Tom Barraclough, Hamish Fraser, and Curtis Barnes (n 26) 32, 40.
148 Escher and Bilik (n 30) 00:12:40–00:13:00.
149 Šarčević presents a discussion of the suitability of restructuring texts while maintaining legal instrument in a Canadian context: Šarčević, New Approach To Legal Translation (n 20) 189–194.
150 For a discussion of the benefits of isomorphic legal coding and its links with transparency, see, e.g. TJM Bench-Capon and FP Coenen, ‘Isomorphism and Legal Knowledge Based Systems’ (1992) 1 Artif. Intell. Law 65, 67–75; Tom Barraclough, Hamish Fraser, and Curtis Barnes (n 26) 70; Trevor Bench-Capon and Justin Forder, ‘Knowledge Representation for Legal Applications’ in Trevor Bench-Capon (ed), Knowledge-Based Systems and Legal Applications, vol 36 (Academic Press 1991) 245, 249–251 <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780120864416500209> accessed 12 May 2021; Trevor Bench-Capon and Thomas F Gordon, ‘Isomorphism and Argumentation’, Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law (Association for Computing Machinery 2009) <http://doi.org/10.1145/1568234.1568237> accessed 11 May 2021.
151 Huggins and others (n 9) 17.
152 Ibid.
153 Smoker v Pharmacy Restructuring Authority (1994) 53 FCR 287 at 291, 293, 297, 300–301. See also Barnes (n 59) 682–683.
154 Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs, ‘Implementation of Commonwealth Pharmaceutical Restructuring Measures’ (Parliament of Australia 1992) app 6 art 8.5.
155 Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 20 September 1990, 2342–2346 (Peter Staples, Minister for Aged, Family and Health Services)
156 Ibid 2345; Barnes (n 59) 683.
157 Escher and Bilik (n 30) 00:13:00–00:14:35.
158 See, e.g. the comments of Dixon J suggesting the High Court not be bound by its own decisions in Attorney General for New South Wales v Perpetual Trustee Company Ltd (1952) 85 CLR 237, 244. For an in-depth discussion on the doctrine of precedent in Australia, see also Michael Kirby, ‘Precedent – Report on Australia’ (2006).
159 Garcia v National Australia Bank Ltd (1998) 194 CLR 395, 417; Federation Insurance Ltd v Wasson (1987) 163 CLR 303, 314.
160 See, e.g. Frederick Bernays Wiener, ‘Decision Prediction by Computers: Nonsense Cubed—and Worse’ (1962) 48 Am. Bar Assoc. J. 1023, 1024.
161 Australian Law Reform Commission, ‘Financial Services Legislation: Interim Report A’ (2021) Report 137 82 <https://www.alrc.gov.au/publication/fsl-report-137/>.
162 See, e.g. Trosborg (n 141); Šarčević, New Approach To Legal Translation (n 20) 18–19, 65–66, 71; Šarčević, ‘Legal Translation and Translation Theory: A Receiver-Oriented Approach’ (n 101) 2; Madsen (n 138), cited in Šarčević, ‘Legal Translation and Translation Theory: A Receiver-Oriented Approach’ (n 101) 2; Wang and Sin (n 138); For discussion on other specialised text genres, see also Nord (n 133) 110–112, 126; Green (n 138) 108–112; Schäffner (n 138) 120–121.
163 That is, to declare the law.
164 The purpose of which is simply ‘to declare the law’, and which is designed purely to be read by humans.
165 Šarčević, ‘Legal Translation and Translation Theory: A Receiver-Oriented Approach’ (n 101) 2; Šarčević, New Approach To Legal Translation (n 20) 18.