Correlation of translation and interpretation of legal terms in comparative legal studies of criminal proceedings

Abstract

Comparative legal methods have always been actively used in a significant part of scientific research into the problems of criminal proceedings. Currently, comparative criminal procedure has become especially in demand due to the need for constant international exchange of legislative and law enforcement experience. Under these conditions, the requirements for the quality of comparative studies themselves are increasing. Today in science it is customary to use legislative sources exclusively in the original language, and in a comparative analysis of the wording of legal regulations to compare not only their general legal meaning, but also specific original terms in their contextual environment. A comprehensive legal and linguistic analysis of legislative formulations from different national legal systems allows us to identify new meanings in compared laws, evaluate the effectiveness of legal regulation of similar social relations in different states, and consciously borrow or reject foreign legislative experience. Based on the analysis of comparative criminal procedural studies available in the domestic literature, the author argues that identified inaccuracies in the translation and interpretation of specific foreign language legislative terms often lead researchers to a distorted understanding and reproduction of the meaning of foreign legislation, to erroneous conclusions and assessments based on the results of its comparison with Russian legal provisions, to unproductive attempts to “squeeze” legal phenomena familiar to Russian and Russian-speaking lawyers into foreign legal frameworks. In this context, some problems of the theory and practice of the Russian criminal process are considered: the participation of an expert and specialist in the case, the witness immunity of a lawyer as a holder of professional secrets, the procedure for his interrogation, the role of a lawyer and the bar in the administration of justice. Based on a comparison of similar legal phenomena in different states of the continental European legal family, directions for finding solutions to existing problems are proposed.