Developing Translation Competence Within the Lifelong Learning Programme for Lawyer-Linguists in the Republic of Croatia

Translation competence includes a complex variety of cognitive, linguistic and cultural skills. Translation in the field of law represents an even more demanding process, as it can be defined as “an act of communication in the mechanism of law” which leads “to legal effects and may induce peace or a prompt war” (Šarčević, 1997). In this paper, different aspects of the translator’s competence in legal translation are discussed. In the introductory part, an overview of theoretical approaches to the translation process is offered. The main part of the paper is dedicated to problems and challenges that legal translators are faced with. Special attention is paid to teaching the documentary approach to translation of EU legislation within the Lifelong Learning Programme for Lawyer-Linguists in the Republic of Croatia. The problems occurring in legal translation and competences of legal translators are discussed from the teacher’s perspective, based on the experience in teaching the course Introduction to the Theory of Legal Translation and Terminology within the Lifelong Learning Programme for Lawyer-Linguists at the Faculty of Law, University of Osijek, Croatia.