Providing linguistic services is a job that takes care of interconnecting different cultures by overcoming the linguistic barriers between them in order for people to access different goods and services more comfortably. It is, therefore, a necessary and substantial activity. Of course, like in most commercial and professional relationships, translators and interpreters are committed to providing a service that meets a series of conditions which give said service provided a certain level of quality; this is because it is a sector in which it is fundamental to provide all the means available in order to guarantee that the interlinguistic reproduction is precise and fulfills the communicative function for which the original was conceived. To do so, the professionals in the sector and publications on the Internet mainly focus on giving tools in this vein, disclosing the importance of searching for perfection and the ideals to which translators and interpreters should be held. However, luckily or unluckily, providing linguistic services continues to be an activity with a marked human component, which means that it is susceptible to containing errors that can go unnoticed during the checking processes. In that case, what responsibility do the translators assume and what situations could take place?
It would be convenient to highlight, first of all, that the translators assume a responsibility throughout the time they provide the service until the final product is delivered. Said responsibility covers respecting the confidentiality of a material to using all the human and virtual resources to guarantee the absence of errors, imprecise language, omissions and other parameters that can compromise the quality of a translation. This is the responsibility that is mentioned most often and tends to be focused on the most. However, the responsibility had by a translation lasts in time and delivering a translation can harm the clients even after having successfully passed a quality control check. For example, it could continue to have errors like the ones described above, the translation could not include an arrangement set forth in the service contract or the use of this incorrect translation could inflict some sort of damage. In other words, the responsibility had by a translation can last even after it is delivered.
In general terms, when one of these circumstances is detected, we talk about incurring in a civil responsibility. Likewise, taking into account art. 1089 of the Civil Code ( [las obligaciones] [obligations] “are born from the law, from contracts and quasi-contracts, and from the illicit acts and omissions or in which any sort of guilt or negligence are involved”) and art. 1902 (“they who by action or omission cause damage to another, involving guilt or negligence, are obligated to repair the damage caused”).
In other words, the Civil Code (applied generally and not specifically to translations) envisages a series of causes for which this type of responsibility can be incurred, such as a negligence in providing the service (errors in the translation or in the process), not respecting arrangements of the contract, or causing some sort of specific damage derived from these. And, moreover, it envisages the obvious obligatory nature of repairing those damages. Of course, the first step consists of delivering a translated version in which the detected errors have been corrected, however, it could occur that the damages caused need to be indemnified, i.e. if an economic loss were produced as a consequence of the use of an incorrect translation. In this article, a highly illustrative case is presented of responsibility of the translators in the case of an incorrect translation and its possible solution.
Of course, the scope of that responsibility is not always the same, this depending on the type of translation in question. Normally, the above information is applied generally, above all, in translations that do not need seals, however, sworn translations, due to their legally binding and official component, are subject to a greater civil responsibility. In art. 459 of the Criminal Code, the crime of false witness of experts and interpreters is explained: “The sanctions of the preceding articles will be imposed in their upper half to the experts or interpreters who maliciously omit the truth in their expert opinions or translations, which will be, furthermore, punished with the sanction of special disqualification for a profession or position, job or public office, from six to twelve years”.
This does not mean that the existence of errors in a sworn translation will send us to jail, but rather that this possibility exists for the cases in which a translation deliberately alters the contents of a translation with respect to the original, thereby not meeting the ideal of precise and faithful reproduction and, definitively, committing a flagrant crime.
For all these reasons, many freelance professionals and translation agencies usually pay for civil responsibility insurance which protects them against the damages caused to third parties when carrying out the company or commercial activity. These work depending on the type of translations envisaged by the activity of the company and, of course, on the continuity of the translation which, as we said in the beginning tends to extend in a continued manner in time.
Definitively, providing linguistic services is a commercial activity with a high transcendence and which assumes a great responsibility for third-party interests. For this reason, we must know the legal framework which contains exercising the activity of the translation and try to use all the resources available to guarantee the absence of errors and other problems that could cause damage. This is the only way we will be able to deliver translations with the highest quality in the long term.
This article was based on the following sources:
– https://www.englishpanish.com/es/la-responsabilidad-del-traductor-ex-post/
– https://www.alainpuyo.com/seguro-responsabilidad-civil-para-traductores/
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