Conor McAuley Dec 13, 2022:

And, line 2...

"A defendant's right to dispute the merits of a claim is exercised by means of a legal action."

Conor McAuley Dec 13, 2022:

My effort:

"A claimant's right to have an application heard on the merits thereof is exercised by means of a legal action (brought thereby), in order that a judge rule it founded or unfounded”.


For the record, this is the English translation that used to be on Legifrance:

"Article 30

The action is the right of the plaintiff of a claim to bring an action to be heard on the merits of his claim so that the judge may declare it founded or unfounded.

For the adversary, the action is the right to contest the merits of this claim."

Mpoma (asker) Dec 7, 2022:

@Cyril Thanks, interesting.
I've been reading about art. 30, and it seems quite a "big (or fundamental) thing" for jurists.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_en_justice_en_procédure...

... What jumps out at me from the above is the way the article starts: "Le droit d'agir en justice est, pour le demandeur, le droit d'être entendu sur le fond de sa demande. Pour le défendeur, c'est le droit de discuter le bien-fondé de cette prétention...".

What is noteworthy here is that the highly aphoristic (ultimately confusing) expression of the article of law is paraphrased so that it actually makes sense. So action becomes "le droit d'agir en justice". OK. Now I understand.

Can Wikipédia be trusted on this score? Probably...

This tends to confirm my observations over the years that the French legislator likes to choose aphoristic, gnomic and mystifying grammatical constructions whenever possible. (The Anglo world's legislators are probably equally culpable of such high crimes and misdemeanours...)

Cyril Tollari Dec 7, 2022:

Action en justice https://www.studocu.com/fr/document/universite-catholique-de...
"On peut remarquer que le legislateur n’a pas utilise les appellations classiques des parties au proces, a savoir celle de demandeur et de defendeur. En utilisant des termes plus neutres, le texte peut renvoyer a des cas de figures differents. Cela permet de croiser les qualites des parties".

Mpoma (asker) Dec 7, 2022:

So it occurs to me... ... that "action" in the sense of "legal activity" seems to suit the context more obviously, i.e. both cases of the expression in the ST. In which case you wouldn't use either a def. or indef. article in English (although you would use the def. art. in French, as here).

Mpoma (asker) Dec 7, 2022:

Cyril's answer ... ... seems to have much support. But does it also apply to the second use of this expression in the ST?

The "adversaire" is also said to have this same right. But it seems to me that they are not themselves initiating any action, just responding to it. Which doesn't mean Cyril's solution is wrong. It's just that the French expression is (to me) even more mysterious when considering the way it is also said to apply to the adversary.

NB use of "adversaire" rather than "défendeur" seems to leave the door open for these being claims made by either plaintiff or defendant during a case. Which might also imply that l'action may not necessarily mean the initiation of an action, just an "incident" during the case. But ultimately I haven't a clue.

NB2 the role of the judge here doesn't seem to be about judging the case, specifically, but accepting or rejecting a given claim (hence, possibly, by either plaintiff or defendant, I would have thought). OTOH maybe this prétention is indeed understood to be the main issue. In which case adversaire = défendeur.

philgoddard Dec 6, 2022:

I think the translation Cyril has found is so literal as to be incomprehensible. It's not "the right in relation to the originator of a claim", it's "the claimant's right".

AllegroTrans Dec 6, 2022:

So often.... French uses the definite article where English uses the indefinite. This is a good case in point.

AllegroTrans Dec 6, 2022:

Cyril Your suggestion is spot on. Please post it as an answer.

Cyril Tollari Dec 6, 2022:

Legal Action https://conflictoflaws.net/2008/flashairlines-and-declarator...
An action is defined by article 30: “an action is the right, in relation to the originator of a claim, to be heard on the merits of the same in order that the judge shall pronounce it well or ill-founded”.

Mpoma (asker) Dec 6, 2022:

@Samuël Thanks. "The action is the right...". Hmm. A lot of translations of stuff out there. Légifrance used to do their own "endorsed" translations into English of the various Codes français. Many of these were pretty dubious. They've disappeared now.

Samuël Buysschaert Dec 6, 2022:

HTH/Fwiw Not my field, just few excerpts that might be useful:


International Encyclopedia of Comparative Law
Réné David
Brill Archive, 1972 - 218 pages
https://books.google.fr/books?id=XkIcpzWKFmwC


Reports of Judgments, Advisory Opinions and Orders / Recueil des arrêts, avis consultatifs et ordonnances, Volume 13 (2013)
Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 14 nov. 2014 - 578 pages
https://books.google.fr/books?id=8HKeBQAAQBAJ


Law of the Sea, Environmental Law and Settlement of Disputes: Liber Amicorum Judge
Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2007
https://books.google.fr/books?id=XUFGlFDQzsUC