John Farebrother

Dictionary of Legal Practice John Farebrother

People from the Balkans have been living in the UK for many years. In the 1970s, when reforms in Yugoslavia allowed its citizens to work and live abroad, there was some emigration to these shores. But this was minor compared to the influx of refugees into the UK during and after the wars of the 1990s. The majority of these people have managed to start new lives in this country, for better or for worse. Inevitably, some have had occasion to come into contact with the law - whether as the victims, witnesses or perpetrators of crime, whether suing or being sued in civil matters, or caught up in family breakdown. The legal interpreter in the UK must rely very much on his or her own resources to put together a glossary that can be drawn from in practice, a glossary of terms that both convey the legal substance of the language produced by the institutions the individual has to deal with, while retaining a degree of equivalence that will be recognised and understood by that individual. For there is no true equivalence between languages, and English law differs from civil law in both its genesis and its practice. This dictionary is the fruit of over 10 years' work collating such glossaries, and as such is intended for use by interpreters acting not as mediators, but as facilitators of communication between the institutions of the English legal system, and people from the Balkans. No distinction is made between the various dialects of the language once known as Serbo-Croat, and some terms in other Balkan languages are also included. The dictionary also includes relevant terms in Romanian and Albanian that may prove useful when working with Romany speakers from the Balkans, as well as a section with relevant Romany phrases and terms.