An inside look at the Canadian Supreme Court

The bench of the Supreme Court of Canada – the only bilingual (English and French) and bijural (common law and civil law) supreme court in the world – currently includes three justices who were law graduates of McGill Law School, and the university’s Alumni blog recently published an interview with the three judges, Sheilah Martin, Mahmud Jamal and Nicholas Kasirer.

The Court works and decides cases in English and French, in all areas of law (such as family, criminal, and tax law).

The judges each give their own perspective on the job, and in particular how life at the Canadian Supreme Court differs from its American counterpart. Continue reading

Bijural terminology records

This is a great resource for translators working with French and English – the Canadian Department of Justice has published individual factsheets or “records” for terms that have been the subject of legislative harmonization between the common law and civil law systems. The records include many legal concepts (one of the trickiest things to translate 😉 ) so I think it’s really useful.

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