Sworn Translation in Brazil

A sworn translation is a translation made by a professional qualified by the Board of Trade of the respective state, and is considered official. Throughout the country, it is required for documents written in a foreign language to be effective in federal, state, or municipal offices, in any instance, court, tribunal, or entities maintained, supervised, or guided by public authorities.

Generally, people or companies resort to sworn translation for the translation or version of private, corporate, and other documents. Thus, sworn translations can be either from a foreign language into the vernacular, or the other way around (version).

However, sworn translation is not necessarily synonymous with quality. It is a translation that, like any other, is not exempt from errors. However, unlike what happens to any other translator who is not sworn, because he or she has public faith
national territory, and the versions are recognized in most foreign countries, the sworn translator has great responsibilities, and may even be subject to criminal sanctions for any serious error.

Sworn translation is necessary whenever a foreign language text must be officially recognized in the country.

According to Campbell (p.116,117), the documents that usually require this type of translation are the following:

Documents for judicial purposes (case records, judgments, powers of attorney); School documents (transcripts, diplomas, certificates, etc.);
Financial and administrative documents of multinational companies (balance sheets, by-laws, registration certificates, contracts)
Documents integrating proposals for bids;

Personal documents (birth and marriage certificates, identity cards, driver’s licenses, etc).

Although it is not common, sometimes the sworn translator needs to translate texts that, apparently, would not need a sworn translation, such as, for instance, a personal letter. This occurs when this material has to be judicially recognized. If this letter, which was written in a foreign language, can serve as evidence before the court, it will only be considered official if delivered together with a copy of its sworn translation into the language of the country in question.

When a text is not subject to court formalities, a free or simple translation can be used, i.e. one that is not sworn to. In this case, it can be delivered to the applicant, even electronically, since no letterhead or original is required. The applicant also has the right to make any changes he/she deems necessary, such as adding a signature or changing a date without having to pay for another translation. In the case of a sworn translation, however, if any changes are made after it is delivered, it will instantly lose its value.

Federal Decree No. 13609 of October 21, 1943, which regulates the office, determines that this is exclusive to individuals, therefore companies cannot provide sworn translation services in Brazil.

Public Translators and Commercial Interpreters, the official designation of sworn translators, are qualified in a public contest for one or more specific languages and are registered with the Board of Trade in the State where they reside. Such public contests comply with Law 13.609/43, regulated by Normative Instruction 84/2000 of the DNRC - National Department of Trade Registration.

In order for candidates to enroll, they must present documents proving

(a) the applicant is at least 21 (twenty-one) years old;
b) not to be an unqualified bankrupt businessman
c) he is a natural-born or naturalized Brazilian citizen
d) he must not be in the process of being prosecuted or have been convicted of a crime the penalty for which would entail dismissal from public office or disqualification from holding it
e) residence for more than one (1) year in the square where he intends to exercise his office;
f) discharge from military service; and
g) identity. (CAMPBELL, A. S., 1983, p.113, 114)

As we can see, the prerequisites to exercise the sworn translator’s craft are many and serve to define the profile of the professional, who should be a person of desirable character and responsible for his acts, above all.

According to Article No. 5 of Decree 13609, the exams for the selection contest for Public Translators and Commercial Interpreters comprise

I - written test consisting of a version, into the foreign language, of a passage of thirty or more lines, drawn at the time; of prose in vernacular, by a good author; and a translation into vernacular of an equal passage, preferably of rogatory letters, powers of attorney, broken letters, passports, notarial deeds, wills, certificates of incorporation of corporations and their bylaws;

II - an oral test consisting of a reading, translation, and version, as well as a lecture, with questioning in the foreign language and the vernacular, to ensure that the candidate has the necessary knowledge and understanding of the subtleties and difficulties of each language. (NCC, 2002, Art. 5)
Observing the tests that the candidate must pass, we can see that his profile becomes even more refined: above all, the sworn translator must know the foreign language with which he will work, knowing even its subtleties, both in the written and oral spheres.

The exams are marked from 0 (zero) to 10 (ten), and for candidates to be approved, they must have a performance equal to or above average of 7 (seven).

Although it is a very complex exam, and requires the candidate to show his written and oral skills in the language in question, there is no guarantee that the sworn translator will be prepared for all the texts he will have to work with.

In order for a sworn translator to be able to do a good job, it is essential that he or she knows the terminology, both in his or her own country and in the country from which the texts come, of some specialty areas, such as law, commerce, and others, since most of the texts he or she will have to translate will very often belong to these fields.

Once qualified, the sworn translator cannot refuse service, except by means of a previous and plausible justification. He must also obey the price list stipulated by the Board of Trade of his State, and may not give in to the client’s requests for discounts in search of a larger clientele, nor overprice his service with a view to remuneration. The price of the services is also determined by the Board of Trade and varies from state to state.

The letterhead and signature of the sworn translator certify that everything written in the translation corresponds faithfully to the original text in the foreign language, so the translator should do his best to convey, in the target language, the entire content of the original in the source language. If he/she is not able to understand something, he/she should have this noted in the translation. All stamps and marks must also be translated.

Any failure or misinterpretation can have serious consequences, including for the translator, as he or she is subject to criminal sanctions.

The Brazilian Civil Code, which to a certain extent governs the sworn translator’s profession, appeared in 1916, thanks to the compilation of the Brazilian laws and the Ordinances of the Kingdom (laws that were in force in the Brazilian colonies). In it we could find the following article Art 406 - The laws and uses of foreign countries govern the form of contracts adjusted therein Teixeira de Freitas explained it this way in a footnote to book 3, volume 59, paragraph 1 of the Ordenações do Reino:
To have faith in court and to be produced for legal purposes, acts passed in foreign countries, instruments, documents, and papers must be competently legalized by Brazilian consuls.

Documents issued in foreign countries will be considered competently translated into the national language when the translation is made by a public interpreter; and in the absence of such an interpreter, by an interpreter appointed at the pleasure of the parties, who must be sworn to.

In other words, the public interpreter has been necessary in Brazilian commercial relations for many years. In times when trade via ship was predominant, the presence of this professional in the ports was indispensable as we can see in the Commercial Code, enacted on June 25, 1850. This legal document provided for the mandatory books for merchants, the Diary and the Copybook, and, in article 16, determined

Art. 16 - The books, to be admitted in Court, shall be found in the language of the country; if because they are of foreign traders they are in a different language, they shall be first translated in the part relating to the issue, by a sworn interpreter, who shall be appointed at the pleasure of the parties, there being no public one; leaving to them the right to contest the translation if less. (Campbell, 1983, p.108 apud Arts 16 and 62 of the Commercial Code)

Thus, the relevance of the Public Translator and Commercial Interpreter for the Brazilian economic relations since ancient times is evident.

Decree 737 of November 25, 1850 regulated Brazilian Commercial Procedure, which dealt with Commercial Law Judges and Commercial Courts. Its article 148 deals with sworn translations.

"Article 148 - Translation (...) shall be done by interpreters appointed by the Commercial Court, and in their absence or impediment, by an interpreter appointed by the judge at the pleasure of the parties" (Campbell, 1983, p.108, apud Article 148 of Commercial Regulation No. 737 of 25th November 1850).
At that time, the profession had not yet been regulated and, if an interpreter was not available at the time of the transaction, another could be appointed by the judge.

Despite a real existence and repeated mentions of the interpreter’s trade, it was only regulated by Decree 863 of November 17, 1851. These professionals were appointed by the Court and subject to the same conditions imposed on merchants to establish themselves. To be accredited, they had to have a working knowledge of foreign languages and prove payment of annual taxes. They could be represented by an agent in case of illness, as long as they were responsible for their actions.

The current Code of Civil Procedure refers to public translators in Articles 151, 153, and 157, in which the dual status of the public translator is confirmed: that of self-employed worker, when he collects his fees from the interested parties; and that of court expert, as an auxiliary to the work of Justice.

Today, the former interpreter is called Public Translator and Commercial Interpreter, with the apposition "Commercial Interpreter" being intended only to rescue the connection with the former title. Other denominations such as "public interpreter", "sworn interpreter", "commercial interpreter", "official interpreter", "sworn translator", and "public and sworn translator" are generally used as equivalents of the official designation: Public Translator and Commercial Interpreter. The product of the work of this professional is a translation coated with legal formalities (sworn translation).

Sworn Translation in Spain

In Spain, a sworn translation is an official translation performed by a Sworn Interpreter appointed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The seal and signature of the Sworn Interpreter are affixed to the translation, which gives public faith in the content of the document.
Sworn translations can only be made on paper, as they must be signed and sealed by the Sworn Interpreter in charge. However, original documents can be sent by any means of communication, including fax or e-mail.

The main differences between a certified translation and other translations (free translations or other) are:

- The sworn translation is legalized and performed by a translator authorized by the Nation, while the others have no legal power.
- A sworn translation must bear the name, signature, and seal of the sworn translator who gives public faith in the content of the document.
These are the differences that distinguish an ordinary translation from a sworn translation, which has public faith.
Generally, any foreign document presented to some authority, such as ministries, notary’s offices, academic institutions, courts, etc., that was originally written in a foreign language must be submitted to a sworn translation. Among these documents, we can cite the following
- Academic documents: diplomas, school transcripts and applications for diplomas.
- Professional documents: job offers, job acceptance, and certificate of good professional competence.
- Administrative documents: visas, marriage certificates, divorce certificates, birth certificates, and international adoption certificates.
- Legal documents: deeds, contracts, minutes, patents, criminal certificates, and notarizations.

We noticed, from this non-exhaustive list, that most of the documents for which sworn translation is most often requested coincide with the documents that are also most frequently submitted to this type of translation in Brazil.

When we started our research, we asked ourselves what is available about sworn translations on the Internet in Spanish-speaking sites. We proceeded, then, to a data search in this sense and, thus, we were able to elaborate an outline about what is thought and said in Spanish-speaking countries about sworn translation.

The first step taken so that we could verify what is the image of sworn translation in Spanish language websites was the choice of the working tool, and we chose the search site "Google". The next step was to choose the descriptor to be used. As we already knew from professionals in the area who kindly helped us, the most commonly used term in the Spanish language is traducción jurada.

Adopting this term as a descriptor, our search led us to 1890 referring sites, but something caught our attention. Among these sites, only 15% belonged to Latin America, where the predominant language is Spanish.
We contacted a professional in the area who usually works with documents from this region and he told us that it was indeed the descriptor that we had been using the most.

But, not satisfied, we continued the search via Internet, this time resorting to other "possible" descriptors. The first to be used was "traducción juramentada", because we thought that, perhaps, there might be some similarity with the descriptor in Portuguese; however, the result obtained was null.

We then launched a new search using the term traducción oficial. To our surprise, we reached the mark of 5700 sites referring to this descriptor. A Colombian site confirmed the equivalence between the terms traducción oficial in Latin American Spanish and tradução juramentada in Portuguese, presenting the following definition: "a translation performed by an official translator registered with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs".

In Spanish sites we find the following definition for traduccíon jurada: "It is a translation of an official nature of a document performed by a Sworn Interpreter appointed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And for sworn interpreter, we find the following definition: "A sworn interpreter is a person qualified to make official translations and interpretations. Sometimes the expression ’Traductor Jurado’ or ’Traductor Oficial’ is used, but the legal name is ’Intérprete Jurado’".

Comparing the definitions found for the two descriptors used, we concluded that this is the same professional, but designated by different descriptors according to the Spanish-speaking country where it is used.

Based on the chosen descriptor traducción jurada, we were able to glimpse the panorama of the Spanish language in the world conveyed in multilingual, bilingual and monolingual sites.

Among the 1890 sites visited, we found that 18% of them are bilingual, 30% are multilingual and 52% are monolingual. These data can be better visualized in the following chart:

How Spanish is spoken around the world

We can then conclude that, although most sites are monolingual, with globalization and the apparent end of borders between countries, there is a growth in the number of multilingual sites, which tends to intensify. Moreover, if we add bilingual and multilingual sites, we get to 48% of the sites. Thus, websites that provide information on sworn translations in more than one language (one of them being Spanish) make up almost half of the sites surveyed.

Among the bilingual sites, it is curious to note that most of them have Spanish and Portuguese as language options (40%), followed by combinations between the official Spanish language and non-official languages used in Spain (mainly Galician and Catalan).

We also carried out a survey about the country of origin of these sites and obtained the following results expressed in the following graph:

We can verify that the vast majority of sites related to the descriptor traductor jurado come from Spain itself (75%); followed by Latin American sites in general (15%) and then, with a mark of 11%, the rest of the world, and of these 11% the vast majority are European.

These data confirm that in Latin America the descriptor traduccíon jurada may not be the most used, since the percentage referring to the provenance of the sites is low.

The types of sites found in our research were the most diverse possible: sites that offer translation services, sites aimed at students who have not yet decided what career to follow, and many others. The following chart shows more clearly the results obtained:

Types of sites found

Analyzing the figure above, we realize that the sites that convey information on sworn translation can be:

- Sites that inform about the need for sworn translation: they add up to 49% of the sites found and vary from banks that ask for the sworn translation of documents so that one can open an account in their agencies, to Austrian tourism sites that warn that, tourists who own animals and do not take with them the sworn translation of the vaccination card of their pets will not be allowed to enter Austria with them.

- Sites specialized in translations of several kinds, including sworn translations: 27% of the pages found, most of which are Spanish.
- University sites: 6% and mostly refer to summer courses for specialization in sworn translation, mainly translations from Spanish to English and vice-versa.

- Embassy websites: 6% and usually deal with sworn translation when explaining what a person of another nationality must do to become a Spanish citizen.
- News sites: 6%.
- Websites that help young people find their future careers: 6%.

Analyzing these data, we can conclude that sworn translation is a vast field of work for the translator, since there is a large job offer in this area involving the Spanish language.

Sworn Translation in Venezuela

Venezuela is one of the countries of origin of our documents. Therefore, we conducted a search for data on sworn translation in this country, using the "Google" tool.
Using the term "traducción jurada" as a base, we found only five sites, namely:

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Venezuela: required certain documents translated in sworn form; Embassies of countries in Venezuela: two (Guatemala and Holland) required translated documents;

Web sites that offer this type of service: one.
Search sites: one.

In the site that offered sworn translation services, we found out that the professional of the area is called, in Venezuela, "public interpreter". Based on this new information, we proceeded with a new search.

In this second search we obtained 690 results, which allowed us to understand how sworn translation and the sworn translator’s work works in Venezuela.

For a foreign document to have official value in Venezuela, besides the strict legalizations, it must be translated into the language of the country, in this case, Spanish. This translation must be done by a person authorized by the Ministry of Interior and Justice, that is, by a sworn translator.

The Law of Public Interpreters (Available at: http://www.cedenocarpio.com, accessed on: 14/04/05), of June 22, 1956, regulates the sworn translator’s profession in Venezuela. In order to better understand this profession, an analysis of this law is necessary. To help us in our analysis we used the Regulation published on May 30, 1995.

The first prerequisite to work as a sworn translator is to be born in Venezuela or to be a naturalized Venezuelan; to be over twenty-one years old; and to have an academic background in the area.

To prove their knowledge of the language they will work with (in addition to Spanish), the translator must take an exam corresponding to each of these languages and achieve a good result. To take the exam, a document containing name, surname, identity card, age, place of birth, nationality, profession, address, language he/she intends to work with, and studies undertaken, must be sent to the Director of Justice and Cults of the Ministry of Justice.

After the exam, the translator must take the oath of law before receiving the title of "Public Interpreter", which is provided by the Ministry of Justice.

The title must then be registered at the Oficina Principal de Registro del Distrito Federal, and then presented to the Judge of the First Civil Court at the time the translator registers in the particular region where he will work. If this is not done, the translator loses the right to charge judicially for his services and also cannot follow the emoluments table determined by the Ministry of Justice.

If, for judicial or physical reasons, a sworn translator cannot work, the judge may appoint any person with sufficient knowledge of the languages involved to do his job.

If the translator violates the Venezuelan Penal Code, he/she may be suspended for up to six months. In case of recidivism, the penalty may increase.

Sworn Translation in Uruguay

Using the "Google" tool, we proceeded to search for data referring to Uruguay, one of the countries of origin of our study documents.

To our surprise, using the descriptor "traducción jurada" we found only one site. It was bilingual (Spanish and Portuguese) and its main subject was Mercosur. The reference to the term "sworn translation" was made when it was explained that all documents related to Mercosur written in Portuguese should go through a sworn translation and vice-versa. This result left us puzzled, since it is very small from a quantitative point of view.

In a second moment, we repeated what we had already done when we searched for sites related to sworn translation in Venezuela. We searched, therefore, through the descriptor "public interpreter". The results were not satisfactory either, as we found only two sites that carried this term. Both were from the International Labor Organization and explained that the translations of documents referring to the hiring of employees from countries where different languages are spoken should be done by a "public interpreter".

Due to the dissatisfaction caused by the results obtained, we continued our search using the same terms, but this time with their gender and number variations.

In the last site visited we learned of the existence of a magazine for translators, one of the articles of which was entitled: El nuevo procedimiento administrativo y la actuación del Traductor Público. Based on this title we decided to carry out a search based on the descriptor traductor publico and, to our surprise, we found 147 sites referring to it. By analyzing the content of each of these sites, we were able to trace the profile of the sworn translator in Uruguay.

The profession of sworn translator in Uruguay is provided for in Article 28 of Law 12,997 of November 12, 1961. It is considered a liberal profession and its work is eminently intellectual in nature. To perform his job, the translator must have a vast knowledge of the world, and to do so he must be up to date with everything that happens in everyday life, including in the field of sciences and technologies. He must also possess a great deal of knowledge about the languages he works with, and this knowledge must go beyond the language itself to encompass the culture of the people who use it. This knowledge is important in order to be able to account for the international legal, civil, social, cultural, scientific, and commercial relations of the countries with which the documents he or she will translate have a connection.

In Uruguay, all documentation from countries which do not have Spanish as an official language must pass through the hands of a sworn translator before being submitted to a State agency or to any other country. The sworn translator can also act in court as an interpreter when necessary.

The person interested in exercising this profession must have an academic degree in any area and pass an admission test in Spanish and in the language he/she intends to work with.

An interesting fact, and one that differs the Uruguayan sworn translation professional from the Brazilian one, is that the former, although he/she may have any academic background, must specialize in the following areas of Law:

- Labor and Social Security Law (minimum of five semesters; equivalent to four hundred hours).
- Public International Law (minimum of four semesters; equivalent to two hundred and fifty-six hours)
- Commercial Law (minimum of five semesters; equivalent to 400 hours)
- Foreign Trade (minimum of four semesters, equivalent to 400 hours).

The regulating bodies of this profession study whether the Uruguayan sworn translator should necessarily have a Specialization in Criminal Law (minimum four hundred hours) and in Administrative Law (minimum four hundred hours as well).