The Congress of Deputies has already ignored the fidelity of the translations that accompany the signal that it broadcasts live from its website and is considering new formulas to do the same with the words in Catalan, Basque and Galician included in the daily newspaper. sessions. Legal sources from the Lower House assure that the team of lawyers is looking for a recipe similar to the one that was already incorporated into the streaming broadcast of the plenary session this Tuesday, to record that the institution is not responsible for the translation, in this case , written.

It is the officials of the body of stenographers and stenotypists of the Cortes Generales who are in charge of capturing what happened in plenary sessions and commissions, and this transcends the literal transcription of the speeches.. They attest to what happens, and are responsible for the official document that contains it.. The Personnel Statute indicates that they do not have direct “hierarchical superiors”, affirm legal sources. According to these sources, they maintain that their responsibility covers the words pronounced in Spanish, the language in which they work..

The problem arises, they explain, when it is contemplated that part of what is recorded in the session diary does not have their endorsement, and incorporates a warning about the words transcribed in the official languages in the autonomous communities, which they do not know, and whose veracity they cannot corroborate. The document, they assure, “has to be complete, not partial.”. That is, it cannot be considered half official, in parts.

The forecast is that the session diary that includes what was said and the events that occurred in the plenary session on Tuesday will see the light this Friday, but it is not ruled out that it could be delayed again – it is usually published 24 hours later, but there is no fixed deadline.. And the House still cannot clarify whether or not there will be a mention that Congress cannot be responsible for the veracity of transcripts in co-official languages.. In examples from the diary of Senate plenary sessions in which the three official languages in their respective autonomous communities can be used, during the debate of motions, no warning is included. In these cases, the original transcription is included first, and then a translation into Spanish.

The reform of the regulations to be able to use Catalan, Basque and Galician came to light this Thursday, with 180 votes in favor and 170 against. These days, an agreement by the Board made it possible to adopt human and material means to be able to use these languages in the first plenary session of the legislature, with the support of external translators. The procedure adopted, explained by Congress, is similar to that already followed, since 2010, in the Upper House..

After the plenary session, the audios of the interventions in the three official languages in the respective Autonomous Communities are sent to an external company.. The translators return a transcription of the words spoken in these languages, and the plan is for this to be incorporated into the session diary.. Another thing is that the stenographers are willing to give their endorsement..

The session diary is an official public document, but a disclaimer clause such as the one that has already been incorporated into the transcript of the video of the plenary session would jeopardize this status, burying its “probative effectiveness.”. “If a court claims it, it does not appear as an official document”. The stenographers not only attest to what their honorable Members say from the speakers' gallery or from their seats.. If there are rumors, shouts or insults – often imperceptible to the microphones – that the presidency does not perceive, it is these officials who attest to the words spoken..

“You would not pay the notary if he gave you a public deed that he was not responsible for,” conclude the legal sources consulted.. They cite articles of the Civil Procedure Law, such as 317, which specifies what are considered public documents “for purposes of evidence” in a judicial process..

“Those issued by public officials legally empowered to attest to the exercise of their functions (…) Those that, with reference to files and records of State bodies, public administrations or other legal entities public, are issued by officials authorized to attest to the provisions and actions of those bodies, administrations or entities”, reads this article. A disclaimer on translations, they say, would jeopardize the integrity of the entire document..