The multilingual jurisprudence of the Court of Justice and the idea of uniformity in European Union Law

Abstract

It is generally accepted that the development of a Union of law is largely due to the judicial decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union (hereinafter, CJEU). With its judicial pronouncements, the CEJEU aims to achieve the same legal effects in every language version of its judgments and, through them, to ensure the uniform application and interpretation of European Union law. Nevertheless, such judicial pronouncements, with normative and binding force, are the result of collegial decisions and drafted by jurists in a language that is usually not
their mother tongue. In addition, they are also the result of various permutations associated with the necessary legal translation from and to (and vice versa) the working language of the Court and the official languages of the European Union. The published judgments presented as authentic are, in most cases, translations. To understand the construction of decisions of the CJEU is to understand the construction of the European Union law, and by consequence, the European project itself.