EPSO Lawyer-Linguist flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Regulation (EU)

Under Art. 288 TFEU, a legal act of general application that is binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States without national transposition.

Directive (EU)

Under Art. 288 TFEU, a legal act binding on Member States as to the result to be achieved, while leaving national authorities the choice of form and methods.

Decision (EU)

Under Art. 288 TFEU, a legal act binding in its entirety on those to whom it is addressed; may be addressed to Member States or to individuals.

Preliminary ruling

Art. 267 TFEU procedure in which the Court of Justice interprets EU law or rules on validity at the request of a national court, ensuring uniform application.

Plaumann test

Standing test for annulment under Art. 263 TFEU: a natural or legal person must be directly and individually concerned, i.e. affected by reason of attributes peculiar to them.

Acquis communautaire

The accumulated body of EU law, rights, obligations and shared objectives that candidate countries must accept and implement before accession.

Subsidiarity

Art. 5(3) TEU principle: in areas of non-exclusive competence, the EU acts only if objectives cannot be sufficiently achieved by Member States and can be better achieved at EU level.

Proportionality

Art. 5(4) TEU principle: EU action must not exceed what is necessary to achieve the objectives of the Treaties; applies to all EU action, including exclusive competence.

Supremacy of EU law

Judge-made principle established in Costa v ENEL (1964): EU law prevails over conflicting national law; it is not expressly stated in the Treaties.

Direct effect

Principle from Van Gend en Loos (1963): clear, unconditional and sufficiently precise Treaty provisions can be invoked by individuals before national courts.

Recital (whereas clause)

Prefatory paragraph in an EU legal act setting out reasons and context; it aids interpretation but has no independent binding force separate from the operative provisions.

Shall vs may

In EU legal English, 'shall' imposes a binding obligation, 'may' confers discretion, and 'should' is a non-binding recommendation; the distinction must survive translation.

Defined term consistency

A term defined in the source (e.g. 'controller') must receive one fixed target-language equivalent throughout the text, even where stylistic variation would be preferred.

Legal effect over form

Translation rule for legal texts: preserve the normative effect of the source; restructure syntax where a literal rendering would change the scope of an obligation.

Mutatis mutandis

Latin phrase meaning 'with the necessary changes made'; in EU texts it signals that a provision applies by analogy, adapted as required, and is usually retained untranslated.

IATE

The EU's interinstitutional terminology database, covering all official languages; the primary reference for consistent rendering of EU legal and technical terms.

EUR-Lex

Official online portal giving access to EU law in all authentic language versions; used to verify the exact wording and citation of an instrument.

Interinstitutional Style Guide

EU publication setting out drafting and presentation conventions (abbreviations, capitalisation, citation formats) for texts in all official languages.

Authentic language versions

Under EU law, all language versions of a legislative act are equally authentic; interpretation must compare versions where a term is ambiguous in one.

One idea per sentence

EU drafting convention: split long source sentences where the target language cannot carry the same subordination without loss of clarity.

Shall for obligation only

In English EU drafting, 'shall' expresses obligation; futurity is expressed with 'will'. Misusing 'shall' for the future creates spurious obligations.

Gender-neutral drafting

Drafting practice avoiding default masculine forms: use 'they' or repeat the noun in English; use inclusive forms in gendered languages where the referent is unspecified.

Date format conventions

EU English writes '1 January 2020'; French '1er janvier 2020'; German '1. Januar 2020'. Punctuation and ordinal markers follow target-language convention.

Decimal separator conventions

English uses a point (3.14); French and German use a comma (3,14). Thousands separators are the inverse; convert consistently within a text.

Terminology consistency rule

Within a single text, a term introduced once must be repeated rather than varied for stylistic reasons; consistency outranks elegance in legal drafting.

Quotation mark conventions

EU English uses double curly quotes (“ ”); French uses guillemets « »; German uses „ “. Source punctuation must not be carried into the target.

Verbal reasoning: cannot be determined

Answer choice correct when the passage neither supports nor contradicts the statement; outside knowledge and plausibility must not be used to decide.

Quantifier shift trap

Verbal reasoning trap where 'all', 'some' or 'none' changes between passage and statement; the statement is false if its quantifier is not supported.

Percentage change formula

Percentage change = (new value − old value) / old value × 100. Percentage points measure the arithmetic difference between two percentages, not a relative change.

Compound growth formula

Compound growth over n periods = P × (1 + r)^n; simple growth = P × (1 + n·r). Identify which the question requires before computing.

Weighted mean

Weighted mean = Σ(value × weight) / Σweight. Used when groups of different sizes are combined; the unweighted mean of group means is usually wrong.

Median vs mean

Median is the middle value after sorting; mean is sum divided by count. The median is unaffected by extreme values, the mean is not.