Gibbons.docx

Gibbons.docx

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Gibbons

LegaltransformationsinSpanish:

an'audiencia'inChile

JohnGibbons

UniversityofSydney

ABSTRACT

ThereisasmallliteratureonthetransformationsthatoccurintranscriptsinlegalEnglish（Eades,1996;Walker,1990）,butlittleonwhathappensinlanguagesotherthan

English.ThisisanimportantissueforRoman/Continentallawsystems,whichrelyintheirdecision-makinglargelyuponwrittentranscriptsoforalevidence.

Thisstudyexaminesthelinguisticconsequencesofthetranscriptionprocess,baseduponSpanishlanguagetaperecordingsoforalsubmissions,andthewritten'declaraciones'（statements）thatemerge,inalabourcourtinSantiagodeChile.

Itrevealsfar-reachingconsequencesforthelanguageoftheevidence,particularlybecauseofthegreaterplanningandeditingpotentialofwriting.Therearetendenciestomovetomorecomplexsyntacticstructures,tousemorepassivetypestructurestherebycolouringblameattribution,tousemoretechnicallanguage,andtoeditmaterial,bothunnecessaryredundancies,andsubstantivefacts.

ThesefindingssupportcurrentchangestotheChileanjusticesystem,whichreplacethistypeofinterviewwithopencourthearings.

LegaltransformationsinSpanish:

an'audiencia'inChile

JohnGibbons

UniversityofSydney

Introduction

TheChileanjusticesystem

TheChileansystemofjusticeisapartoftheworld'smostwidespreadformofjustice,RomanLaw.Itisaninquisitorialsystem,attemptingtouncovertruththroughquestioningandtheexaminationofdocumentaryandmaterialevidence.Unliketheadversarialsystem,mostcourtroomquestioningofwitnessesisdonebyarelator,acourtofficialwithlegaltraining,andthistestimonyistypedupintheformofarelatoaswitnessesspeak.Ifawitnessisevasiveorfailstoappear,thisistakenasanadmissionofguiltorculpability.Usuallyseveralwitnessesinacasearequestioned,andthissequenceofinterviewsiscalledanaudiencia.Thesetofrelatosarethenpassedtothejudgewithasummarywrittenbytherelator.Mostjudgmentsarereachedonthebasisofthiswritteninformation,particularlythesummary,butjudgesmaychoosetointerviewthewitnessesthemselves,particularlyifthereisaconflictorissuethatisnotresolvedbytherelator'sinterviews.

Attheendof2000aprocessofchangebeganintheChileanlegalsystem,withamoveinsomepartsofthecountrytoamoreadversarialjusticesystemalongthelinesofsimilarchangesinGermany,ItalyandArgentina,butithadnotreachedSantiagoatthetimeofthisinvestigation.Thesechangesconstituteamovetoanopencourtsystemwithverbatimrecordingofquestioning,andtheChileanPresident'sspeechtoparliament（note1）onthesechangesstatedexplicitlythattheyareintendedtoincreaseaccountabilityandtransparency.

ThispaperwillexaminewhathappensintheprocessoftheconversionfromspokeninteractiontowrittenmonologuesinceasfarasIamawarethereisalmostnoinformationonthis,andindeedonlylimitedinformationonlegalSpanish（butseeDuarteinMonserrat&Martínez,1995）.ThepaperandthrowlightonsomeoftheissuesunderlyingthecurrentchangestotheChileanjudicialsystem.

Theinterview

Theinterviewswithwitnessesandpartiesperformedbyarelatorgothroughaseriesofstages;inMartin's（1992）termstheinterviewisagenre.Beforetheinterviewbeginstherelatormayobtainfromthelawyersanyquestionthattheywantaskedintherepreguntasstageoftheinterview（thereisnodirectexaminationbyopposinglawyersofthetypefoundintheCommonLawsystem）.Theinterviewgenreisalongthefollowinglines.

Figure1Theinterviewgenre

Introduction

PersonalData

Identification:

theintervieweeproducesaNationalIdentityCard,andtherelatorinsertsthedetails,includingfullnameandidentitynumberonthewordprocessor

Employment:

"¿Profesiónuoficio?

"（Professionoremployment?

）

Address:

"¿Domicilio?

"（Homeaddress?

）

Swearingin（Juramento）"Juropordiosdecirlaverdad"（Iswearby

Godtotellthetruth）

InterviewProper（Declaración）

Framing

Formofreplies

Formofquestions

Typeofquestions

Thecaseandtheparticipants

Examination

dependsonthecase,butoftenwhat,when,who,whereandwhyquestions（perhapswiththatorderunderlying）;responsesareroutinelyreformulatedbytherelatorasyesnoconfirmationquestions,anditisthesereformulationsthattendtoberecorded.

Lawyers'questions（Repreguntas）

Ending

Conclusion

Transcriptreadaloudforchecking/changes

Intervieweesigns

Thecontext

ThecourtthatIamdiscussingtodayistheOctavoJuzgadoLaboraldeSantiago,theEighthSantiagoLaborCourt.Labourcourtshandledisputesbetweenemployersandemployeesonthebasisoflabourlaw.TheOctavoJuzgadooccupiesascruffymultistoreybuildingonabusycornerindowntownSantia