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Glossary entry

French term or phrase:

comparaître par ministère d\'avocat à la Cour...devant le Tribunal

English translation:

to summons ABC to be legally represented before the Court of...

Added to glossary by Vivien Green
Jul 31, 2019 12:05
4 yrs ago
45 viewers *
French term

comparaître par ministère d'avocat à la Cour...devant le Tribunal

French to English Law/Patents Law (general) Asbestos report - locatio
This appears in a summons for a Luxembourg court case. The full context is:

Je soussigné [M. X] ai donné assignation à [A, B et C] à comparaître par ministère d'avocat à la Cour...devant le Tribunal d'arrondissement de et à Luxembourg.

Can anyone help with the wording here?
Proposed translations (English)
4 to summons ABC to be legally represented before the Court of...
5 to enter an appearance through a barrister... before the Tribunal
4 enter an appearance through the agency of ('acting by') a Barrister-at-Law... before the Court
Change log

Jul 31, 2019 16:35: Yolanda Broad changed "Term asked" from "comparaître par ministère d\\\'avocat à la Cour...devant le Tribunal" to "comparaître par ministère d\'avocat à la Cour...devant le Tribunal "

Discussion

Eliza Hall Aug 2, 2019:
@AllegroTrans You've misread my post. I said Luxembourg might be small enough that all of its internal jurisdictions have courts of appeal located within them. As opposed to France or Germany or the US, where many jurisdictions see their cases appealed to courts located somewhere else. For instance, in any US state, all the counties have courts of first instance, but only one or two larger cities have both courts of first instance (covering that city) and a court of appeals (covering appeals from that city and from several surrounding counties).
AllegroTrans Aug 2, 2019:
BTW Eliza Luxembourg is not "too small" to have a Court of Appeal. It is s sovereign state and therefore has the full range of national courts one would expect.
AllegroTrans Aug 1, 2019:
Courts vs. tribunals Yes, certainly the distinction in civil law systems is different to that of UK/USA. Whether or not you use the word tribunal to describe a lower court of law, countries with the French (Code Napoléon) system have specialist tribunals, e.g. conseil de prud'hommes for employment matters, rent tribunal etc. For that reason I personally would not describe a lower court hearing ordinary civil and criminal cases as a tribunal, even if official websites of some countries use that term in their English translations.
Eliza Hall Aug 1, 2019:
Court vs. tribunal The distinction between courts and tribunals is different in the UK/US tradition than in the French tradition. In FR and related systems, a tribunal is a court of 1st instance; it may or may not be specialized (tribunal correctionnel, tribunal d'emploi...)

In Luxembourg the tribunaux d'arrondissement are not true courts of general jurisdiction (since some types of cases are heard elsewhere in the 1st instance), but they are catch-alls that hear all cases not expressly assigned to some other judicial body.
https://gouvernement.lu/fr/systeme-politique/cours-tribunaux...

Tribunal in EN means different things in different countries (google "difference court tribunal" + country name to see), but generally they are specialized courts of 1st instance (military trib., employment trib., etc.). "Court" is more general and includes not just courts of 1st instance but also all levels of appeal.

So there is no exact correspondence between FR cour/tribunal and EN court/tribunal. The systems don't match so neither do the words, and the EN words mean different things in different countries. I prefer tribunal>tribunal because at least then we know it's a court of 1st instance. But YMMV.

Proposed translations

3 days 4 hrs
French term (edited): ABC à comparaître par ministère d'avocat à la Cour...devant le Tribunal
Selected

to summons ABC to be legally represented before the Court of...

"Je soussigné [M. X] ai donné assignation à [A, B et C] à comparaître par ministère d\'avocat à la Cour...devant le Tribunal d\'arrondissement de et à Luxembourg."

"I, the undersigned M. X. hereby summons ABC to appear, legally represented, before the Court of XYZ, ..."

It does not seem to be a summmons for ABC to appear with legal representation, but for ABC to be legally represented.

Maybe you could go with a short form that still makes use of standard legalese "to summons ABC to be legally represented before the Court of...". Quite honestly, that is xhat the source seems to be saying and "legal representation" is a standard phrase and obviosuly means that those with the relevant rights of audience can represent ABC in the court in question. Gets you round the problem of barrister, counsel, barrister-at-law etc., not to mention the question of whether of not ABC is to be present with the legal beagles.
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
23 mins
French term (edited): comparaître par ministère d'avocat à la Cour...devant le Tribunal

enter an appearance through the agency of ('acting by') a Barrister-at-Law... before the Court

Previous ProZ answers have forgotten the at-Law extension that can be used, even by non-practising and retired members of the Bar.

BTW, there used to be a Barrister-Solicitor/Avocat -Avoué divide in Belgium and Luxembourg up to 40 years ago, the Avoué title still coming up in Courts of Appeal in the South of France.

Thanks anyway for the title that I will now use instead of Avocat plaidant vs. postulant.
Example sentence:

S v S; in re S (An Infant, *by her Guardian ad Litem* the Official Solicitor to the Supreme Court) v S; W v Official Solicitor (Acting as Guardian ad Litem for a Male Infant Named PHW): House of Lords 1970

Reference:

http://eng.proz.com/kudoz/french-to-english/law-general/1448078-avocat-à-la-cour.html

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoué_(France)

Peer comment(s):
neutral AllegroTrans : Right idea but Barrister-at-Law is much to E&W/Commonwealth/Ireland an expression here, and "through the agency of" is really unnecessary waffle
23 hrs
Indeed, though it is more for ref. - and my own titular use.// waffle 1. that is why I added 'acting by' in brackets 2. 'through the ministerial agency of' - query: still usable in a tortious or Scots delictual context: James on Tort (1969).
neutral Eliza Hall : You've got the gist, but this doesn't sound like the phrasing one would see in a summons, and it's about half a dozen words longer than it needs to be.
1 day 1 hr
That never never stopped you lifting half of the wording.
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1 hr
French term (edited): comparaître par ministère d\'avocat à la Cour...devant le Tribunal

to enter an appearance through a barrister... before the Tribunal

"Avocat à la Cour" is a term for which you don't need to translate the last bit, because there is no equivalent distinction in English. "Barrister" suffices, if you're translating for a British audience. For the US you could just say "through its counsel." See explanation below. And "through" is all you need for "par le ministère de."

So, comparaître = appear or enter an appearance; in this case you would use the latter because an assignation happens at the very earliest stage of a civil action, and a lawyer technically has to "enter an appearance" (file a paper stating that they are X party's lawyer, or possibly, depending on local practices, show up in court and formally so state) before they can "appear" (i.e. make an argument or do anything else in court on behalf of their client).

The distinction that doesn't exist in English is between "avocat à la Cour" and "avocat au barreau." They both mean barrister, i.e., an attorney who argues cases in court. The distinction is just based on where the barrister practices: if she's based in a jurisdiction where a court of appeals is physically located, then she's an "avocate à la cour." If she's based in a smaller place that doesn't have a court of appeals actually located there -- in other words, the court to which cases from her jurisdiction get appealed is physically somewhere else --then she's an "avocate au barreau." If you're in a place where there are no jurisdictions that lack courts of appeal (and Luxembourg is small enough that it might be one), then all barristers are "avocats à la cour."

Reference: http://pointdroit.com/difference-avocat-cour-barreau/

Peer comment(s):
agree writeaway : although court is fine imo. it's a district court (Tribunal d\'arrondissement)
20 mins
Yes, they're fairly interchangeable, but see discussion.
disagree AllegroTrans : It is a court and tribunal here is a false friend; the tribunal system in Luxembourg is a separate entity
22 hrs
Please see discussion. In Lux. tribunaux are the courts of first instance and la cour is the court of appeal, as in France. It's not a separate entity, just 1st instance vs. appellate levels of the judiciary.
neutral Adrian MM. : You have, de novo, slightly reworded my answer and gone off-beam with a tribunal.
23 hrs
Wording is the essence of translation, is it not? Any bilingual person can get the basic meaning right. As such, all correct answers will resemble each other, but some will be worded better. As for tribunal vs. court, see discussion.
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