Brankica Bojovi, PhD, Associate Professor

University of Montenegro

LEGAL ENGLISH AMONG NOTARIES PUBLIC IN MONTENEGRO

Abstract
The following paper is dedicated to Legal English at Notaries Public in Montenegro. It is based
on the Statute and the Code of Ethics of the Notarial Chamber as well as legal documents and
simultaneous translation for the needs of the notaries public.
The paper discusses translation of common notarial lexis and terminology. Also, here are
described lexical transformations during translation process, whether written or simultaneous.
The focus of the story is on target language.
In the second part of the paper it will be described semantic and pragmatic strategies in
the improvement of the translation quality. Translation as loyal equivalent to the original is
understandable, and because of the import of numerous angicisms in our native languages (exYugoslav republics) as well as globalization and the impact of the European Union legislative
there is a significant number of false friends that should be avoided.
In the final part of the paper the focus in on legal terminology at notaries public. It could
come up to a conclusion that legal terms and concepts are determined properly only by a legally
educated person, lowyer or judge who also knows target language on the high level, or at least a
language expert with a pervious legal review of contracts and transactions in various fields of
law.
Key words: legal English, notary public, Statute, Code of Ethics of the Notarial
Chamber, notarial lexis, legal system, legal reform, expert knowledge

Legal processes are primarily realized through language, because language is a product in the
various fields of law where legal sources, spoken or written, are generated in the service of
regulating social behavior with state enforcement.
So far, legal education and practice, as well as the performing of legal services have been
mainly based on skills for resolving subject disputes. The transition process and the reform of the
legal system have required the services of lawyers with the professional knowledge that would
prevent eventual disputes. Implementing legal reforms such as the Code on Civil Procedure, the
Law on Execution Procedure, the Law on Notaries and others, have necessarily assumed the
presence of qualified lawyers who would use their specialized and expert knowledge to
contribute to the improvement to apply these codes and rules. Besides following the reform
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process, for this work it is important to know the relevant provisions of the Law of Obligation,
Family Law, Hereditary Law, Law of Real Property and Commercial Law. The notary public is a
synonym for knowledge, professionality, repsonsibility an expert knowledge. Therefore, lawyers'
education about new reform solutions, rules and legal institutes are a continual process, that is
conditio sine qua non of the legal state and the rule of law. (Biki 2010:3)
The Parliament of the Republic of Montenegro passed the Law on Notaries on 8 th
November 2005. It regulates the work of the notaries public and the notary service as well as the
issues important for dealing with notarial work. The Notarial Chamber edits its journal Notary
Public in which professional and scientific papers from the field of notarial service, official acts
and information of the Notarial Chamber are published. The first edition of the journal was
published in April of 2013, on which occasion the second anniversary of the establishment of the
Notarial Chamber of Montenegro was marked. It is focused on the the work of the notaries
public under the mentorship of renowned professors of these legal issues. All participants in the
project of the implementation of the notariat into the legal system of Montenegro have had their
roles and contributions but the role of the Ministry of Justice and the German Society for
International Cooperation (GIZ) are particularly noteworthy. In the first volume of the journal the
paper of Zoran Raovi, PhD, full professor at the Faculty of Law in Podgorica appeared, who
was writing about a new and specific institute in the law of Montenegro, i.e. continual mortgage.
It represents one of the most modern means of debt provision. The legal institute of a continual
mortgage as a debt provision in the legal systems of ex-Yugoslav countries, matches the
principles of Euromortgage. (Notar 2013:5-30).
Full attention will be devoted to analysis of semantic strategies and the legal lexical fund
of the Statute of the Notarial Chamber of Montenegro and the Code of the Notarial Ethics that
were officially translated by the author of this paper and and served as a corpus of legal material
for the aims of this study. Aimed at resolving terminological ambiguities in legal terminology
commonly used in law, the paper provides a table of the translation and interpretation of
terminological concepts and issues found in the notarial system of Montenegro.
Source Statute of the
Notarial Chamber of
Montenegro

English equivalent examples

English equivalent sentences

Article 1

probationer notaries public

Article 4

legal entity

Article 5

die stamp

Article 7

unbiased holders of public

offices

Article 7

Notary Public Code of Ethics

Article 7

attornies-at-law

Artcile 8

The Assembly of the Notarial

Chamber

Article 9

exercises rights and

obligations

Article 11

summoned and presided

Article 23

property mortgage or lease

Article 23

public procurement

notary public assistants and

probationer notaries public
within the Notarial
Chamber
The Notarial Chamber
acquires the status of a legal
entity
The Notarial Chamber has a
seal, official stamp, a postal
seal and a die stamp.
for the successful work of
notaries public as independent
and unbiased holders of public
offices.
ensure that the Notary
Public Code of Ethics is
followed.
Establish cooperation with
attornies-at-law and other
similar associations.
The Assembly of the Notarial
Chamber may appoint
temporary commissions and
other task forces to perform
certain preparatory tasks
The Assembly exercises rights
and obligations envisaged
by
The Notarial Chamber
Assembly is summoned and
presided over by the President
of the Notarial Chamber
deciding on any legal
business dealing with the
acquisition and alienation of
proprety rights, property
mortgage or lease.
announcing the public
procurement call on behalf of
the Notarial Chamber and
carrying out the public
procurement procedure in
compliance with specific legal
provisions.

Article 26

in case of perquisition of a
notarial office

Article 33

legally exempted

Article 33

reimbursement

Article 36

lodges and appeal

Article 37

allegations

Article 47

via secret and personal ballot

Article 49

travel allowance and other

remunerations in compliance
with

Article 56

have the right to step down

with explanation

appoints the notary public to

represent the Notarial
Chamber in case of
perquisition of a notarial
office.
Notary public has disciplinary
responsibility if he/she takes
action on an issue from which
he/she is legally exempted.
charges lower compensation
or reimbursement than the one
envisaged by the Tariff
The procedure for determining
disciplinary liability of notary
public is initiated by the
disciplinary prosecutor who
lodges an appeal to initiate
disciplinary action.
notary public has the right
to respond in writing to the
allegations made in the appeal
within eight days from the day
he/she received the appeal.
The election of the organs'
members and functionaries of
the Notarial Chamber is done
at the electoral meeting of the
Assembly via secret and
personal ballot.
The members of the organs
and functionaries in the
Notarial Chamber perform
their duties alongside their
regular notarial duty, so they
have a right to travel
allowance and other
remunerations in compliance
with the general act of the
Notarial Chamber.
The members of the organs,
President and Vice President
of the Notarial Chamber have
the right to step down with
explanations, as well as to a
collective resignation.

Article 65

allotment of a greater number

of notarial places

It submits preliminary opinion

to the competent ministry
about the allotment of a
greater number of notarial
places.
Via its representatives, it
attends the perquisition of
notarial premises.
registers are marked by
ordinal numbers and the sheets
are stitched by yarn.
The Board of Directors
takes care of the charge of
overdue claims of the Notarial
Chamber.
Resources of the Solidarity
Fund are also used for
pecuniary aid to notarial
offices and notaries public

Article 65

attends the perquisition of

notarial premises

Article 67

sheets are stitched by yarn

Article 81

overdue claims

Article 82

used for pecuniary aid to

notarial offices and notaries
public

SourceThe Notary Public's

Code of Ethics
Article 1

English equivalent examples

English equivalent sentences

The Notary Public's Code of

Ethics

Article 3

perform his/her service

Article 3

binding documents

Article 7

conduct and actions

determines principles and

rules to regulate the conduct of
notaries public in executing
notarial duties and outside
their field of work
a notary public performs
his/her service diligently,
honestly and impartially in
accordance with the
Constitution and the Law.
Notary Fee and other
binding documents
the members of his/her
family also make effort not to
negatively affect, with their
conduct and actions, the
respect for notary public an
notarial service as a public
service.

Article 8

refresh, widen and advance

his/her legal and general
knowledge

Article 10

commission fee

Article 13

jeopardize the client's legal

interest

Article 18

Request for Initiation of

Disciplinary Action

Article 19

a thorough and versatile

approach

Article 21

Ethical Issues' Committee

Article 21

claimant unduly fails

Notary public should

constantly refresh, widen and
advance his/her legal and
general knowledge and should
do so uniformly, so that he/she
does not neglect any area of
the law within the competence
of notarial service.
The duty of notary public is
incompatible with mediation
or other actions tat entail
commission fees, especially
those actions that pertain to
the transfer of real estate and
real estate rights.
not to jeopardize the client's
legal interest due to work
overload.
to file a Request for
Initiation of Disciplinary
Action to the Disciplinary
Prosecutor in accordance with
the Law.
incent them to have a
thorough and versatile
approach to gaining the
required practice and
knowledge, taking care of the
professional structure of the
personnel.
The Chairman of the Ethical
Issues' Committee, by
delivering the request to the
Notarial Chamber of
Montenegro.
In the case the claimant
unduly fails to attend the
requested confrontation, the
Requested is considered to be
withdrawn, the fact that the
claimant would be clearly
warned about in the Invitation
to Confront.

Article 21

the Steering Committee

Article 22

enter into force

Other sources (notarial

papers)

bound to perform
subscribed and sworn
to be established
procurement
case file
lapse
observe
enforcement
amended and supplemented
notarial service
vocational training
permanent staff
notarial profession
comply with notary ethics
full access

in accordance with a statute

of limitation, the Steering
Committee will issue a
Decision that the time to
prosecute notary public has
expired, and the proceeding
will be suspended.
This code enters into force on
the eight day after its
publication in the Official
Gazette of Montenegro.
Notaries public are bound to
perform in accordance with
the law
The notary public is
subscribed and sworn to
before
The Notary Chamber shall be
established
invested in the procurement
of the notary's office
notarial case files
subject to destruction upon
the lapse of the said period.
Obligated to observe
professional ethics
Coercive enforcement
Article is amended and
supplemented.
performance of notarial and
authentications services
vocational training is
provided through the Court
of
permanent staff of 5
professionals and employees.
the notarial profession has
to apply important principles
to its activity.
A notary complies with notary
ethics.
full access to impartial legal
services.

Terminological precision is the main feature of the legal system. Language and legal
competence are inevitably intertwined with legal English usage. The translation techniques used
in the paper are such that the content of the message, the formal features and functional roles of
the original text could be translated more truthfully and retain the desired impact and effect that
they had in the source language.
Notarial instruments are: presumed, valid and regular; self-authenticating; probative (i.e.
proof of their contents); public; self-executing; and have a fixed, unalterable effective data.
(www.wikipedia.org: Civil law notary)
Notaries are legal specialists and named judicial officers by the state to confer an official
character to private documents. They have overall vision of the clients' interests. They draft
deeds, contracts and testaments to the parties in transactions. Notaries' authentic acts are binding
with respect to contracting parties' mutual obligations. That is why a notarial act has the same
effect as a court order.
The relevant theoretical framework and translation practice were the basic concept that I
use in my work, during official translation. Whether the use of a specific translation technique is
justified or not depends on a large number of factors, but most of all is in the relation between
the two translated languages, the source language and the target language. In the analysis that
follows, there were generally used adaptation, loanwords, back translation, calque, transposition,
translation transformation-shift morphological, lexical and syntactic, narrowing and widening of
meaning. (Hlebec 2009: 1-12)
The so-called legal translator should uphold the principle of language consistency, i.e.
using the same equivalent wherever the reference is made to a particular legal concept.
The analysis was done using comparative approach in translation, different legal systems
and traditions, prescriptive law-related (imposed rights, duties and obligations) providing their
performance.
Attention is also paid to the phenomenon of false friends in the inter-language transaction
which is worthy of mention.
The English (actual) corresponds to the Serbian/Montenegrin (stvaran) but not (aktuelan).
The English (billion) corresponds to the Serbian/Montenegrin (milijarda) but not (bilion).
The English (eventually) corresponds to the Serbian/Montenegrin (na kraju) but not
(eventualno).
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The English (mandate) corresponds to the Serbian/Montenegrin (ovlatenje) but not (mandat).
The English (regular) corresponds to the Serbian/Montenegrin (redovno) but not (regularno).
The English (combine) corresponds to the Serbian/Montenegrin (ukupno) but not (kombinovano).
The English (perspective) corresponds to the Serbian/Montenegrin (taka gledita) but not
(perspektiva).
The English (mandatory) corresponds to the Serbian/Montenegrin (imperativno) but not
(mandatorno).
The English (adequate) corresponds to the Serbian/Montenegrin (osoba sa potrebnim
kvalitetima) but not (adekvatan).
The English (difference) corresponds to the Serbian/Montenegrin (razilaenje) but not (razlika).
The English (lawyer) corresponds to the Serbian/Montenegrin (osoba koja profesionalno daje
pravne savete i brani na sudu) but not (advokat).
The English (attorney) corresponds to the Serbian/Montenegrin (osoba koja profesionalno brani)
but not (advokat).
The English (solicitor) corresponds to the Serbian/Montenegrin (osoba koja brani na niim
sudovima ili uopte ne brani na sudu, a daje pravne savete) but not (advokat).
The English (barrister) corresponds to the Serbian/Montenegrin (osoba koja brani na viim
sudovima) but not (advokat).
The English (advocate) corresponds to the Serbian/Montenegrin (branilac na sudu). (Bojovi B.,
2013.)
In modern times, the internationalisation of society has brought new megacities and
megastates that have changed the world legal system fundamentally. The European legal system
is integrated by the European Union, within the frame of the global era and common legislation.
Also, Latinisms and Romanisms in English largely used in legal texts that I have found
worth mentioning are: ad hoc, sans prejudice, a priori, de facto, de jure, ex officio, id est, malum
in se, pro rata, mens rea. They could be freely considered legal internationalisms as part of a
Latin lexicon but adapted, borrowed or taken into legal English or Serbian.
The problems of equivalence in translation are cultural ones. The invisibility of the legal
translator comes into question when legal system differences appear, then translation techniques
cover the new cultural and legal contexts. While every state has a statute creating and regulating
the office of notary public, they are limited to certain areas of law which were already mentioned
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at the beginning of the paper. The level of equivalence of the terms depends on the extent of
relatedness of the legal systems.
Legal terms are semantically stable and unambiguous as well as contextually bound.
Only an official translator of legal background could successfully surpass and avoid all
misunderstandings and differences of legal systems, because of the necessary legal knowledge
and precise legal meaning.
References

Biki E., Radovi M., Suljevi S., (2010) Notarijat u Crnoj Gori, Podgorica.
Notar, (2013) Notarska komora Crne Gore, Br.1. Podgorica.
Hlebec. B. (2009) Prevodilake tehnike i postupci. Beograd: EBG.
accessed 2 August 2013 at www. wikipediaCivil law notary.
Bojovi B. (2013) Paper on legal terminology, International Conference 24th

May, Belgrade, Alfa University .

Bojovi B (2012) Official translation of the Statute of the Notarial Chamber of
Montenegro and the Code of Notarial Ethics

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