Incomprehensible Government Translations Leave English Speakers Puzzled As To What Happens During Arrest And Trial In The Netherlands

The Netherlands has a major problem with low-quality translations. We’ll show you how important this is and how this can affect you. We’re not talking about the quality of translations of conversations and small talk, although even dating apps and conversational translations often produce mistranslations too. Rather, we’re talking about formal situations involving government entities, formalities and proceedings.

Imagine going to a notary’s office in the Netherlands to formalize some documents you need for your English-speaking country. Just try to read the following notary stamp and ask yourself whether the officials in your country would understand it:

“Issued for authentically copy, by mr. [. . .], substitute of mr. [. . .], notary-public at [. . .], the Netherlands, of this to me displayed, with this copy compared document, on this day, 10th day of [. . .].”

Yes, the words are English alright, but the meaning is hard to grasp, confusing or outright incomprehensible. It’s like a puzzle where you have to figure out what the meaning is of each word and how it connects to the next, or whether it does so at all. Even Netherlands websites targeting English speakers can be hard to understand. Although the conversational part in English might be alright, often the technical terminology used in the more important parts is confusing or simply unintelligible.

The many Dutch translation-industry protests show that the Dutch government is notorious for obtaining low-quality translations as cheap as possible. Unintelligible translations used by the Dutch government are rampant. Let’s have a look some examples from information issued by the Netherlands Justice Department and judiciary that are at best confusing and at worst incomprehensible. We picked these texts because they aptly show the confusion people experience when reading Dutch brochures about their rights during arrest and trial.

We know many English speakers have problems understanding what happens upon arrest and at trial in the Netherlands and these types of brochures don’t really inform but instead add to the confusion. We know of family members having much trouble trying to find clear information about what exactly is the procedure and what happens when someone is arrested or tried in the Netherlands. Why is it important? Well, if for instance your child is arrested in the Netherlands, you need to understand exactly what’s going on to be able to help effectively. Confusion doesn’t help.

The translation and comprehension problems are magnified exponentially when you or your relatives are the target. If you don’t even understand the charges against you, how can you properly defend yourself? If they bring charges against you in a language or in confusing English words that you don’t even understand, how can you properly defend yourself? How can that be due process? And yet, this is exactly the problem with the Netherlands government.

We’ll first look at the Netherlands Justice Department’s information they give to people that have a run-in with the law in the Netherlands and then see how other English speakers interpret it.

The first brochure has the title “If you are suspected of a criminal offence” which already sounds incomplete, because after the “if” most of us will want to finish that sentence with “then . . .” The brochure states (p. 4): “You can be held in police custody [. . .] if ordered by a duly authorized senior police officer or the assistant prosecutor”. American readers are familiar with federal assistant prosecutors, so there seems to be no problem understanding this sentence, or is there? Is this Dutch “assistant prosecutor” the prosecutor we think he is? Page 3 states that this “assistant prosecutor” is “usually a senior police officer”. So that begs the question what exactly this “assistant prosecutor” is and whether he’s a prosecutor, in the English sense, at all.

Let’s continue. The brochure then mentions (p. 6) “Appearance before the Officer of Justice” upon arrest. Who’s this “Officer of Justice”? Is that the judge? Some other court official? “He will have received the dossier on your case from the police [. . .] and details of any (forensic) evidence which exists” (p. 6). What’s that “dossier”? How about “which exists”? Yes, these are English words but the phrasing of the sentence is semantically opaque. It’s just hard to follow. Anyway, this person seems to have incarceration powers: “The Officer of Justice decides that you must be detained even longer in the interests of the police investigation” (p. 5). Again, who exactly is that “Officer of Justice”?

Lastly, page 10 states:

“Once the judge has returned his verdict, if you have been found guilty and sentenced to a term of imprisonment, you will be transferred from the detention centre to a prison.”

Apart from the way the sentence is phrased, does the Netherlands system have jury trials? Or is this text referring to bench trials.

The other brochure issued by the Netherlands Justice Department and judiciary Netherlands, titled, “On trial,” is equally confusing to the point it makes no sense.

Page 8 defines “Cross-examination” as “The judge may now ask you a number of questions. You are under no obligation to answer. Unlike the witnesses, you are also under no obligation to take the oath or affirm.” Again, the same page mentions “verdict and sentencing” which leads you to think they have jury trials. However, you have no jury rights in the Netherlands. What’s more, a jury trial is condescendingly called “administration of justice by laymen”, the idea being that they administration of justice by a judge without any involvement of others is the best. We know, of course, that many jurisdictions think otherwise, because of its propensity to judicial authoritarianism, blinkered justice wanting only one result, and miscarriages of justice because there’s no one to provide any other perspective of the matter.

You see how reading just these few sentences can be confusing. With the “Officer of Justice” in mind, now let’s see how English-speaking readers construe these translations issued by the Netherlands judiciary. One of the readers is the U.K. government’s Foreign & Commonwealth Office issuing guidance for British nationals overseas, titled, “Information pack for British nationals detained or imprisoned in the Netherlands”

Explaining “Police custody and initial arrival at prison” it states:

“The Police may wish to investigate further and therefore can lodge a request with the assistant prosecutor to extend the custody period. You shall be interviewed by the prosecutor (who is normally a senior police officer) and if the warrant is granted you can be held without charge for a further 72 hours. [. . .] Within three days and fifteen hours from the time of your arrest, you must be brought before an examining judge (officer of justice) who shall determine whether you will be placed in remand or released” (emphasis added).

Again, who’s this “Officer of Justice”? Who exactly is the prosecutor and the assistant prosecutor? Are they one and the same? And who exactly is the senior police officer? Or is he the same as the prosecutor?

Remember, this is how information from the Netherlands government is construed by another English-speaking government trying to offer guidance to its citizens about what happens in the Netherlands upon arrest. Note that this is an English-speaking entity that doesn’t speak Dutch, so, for lack of Dutch background and language knowledge, it can’t assume the meaning of the Netherlands government’s translation much be this or that or the other, because it simply doesn’t speak Dutch, so it has to work exclusively with the English text it’s given. Now you understand why we’ve heard so many complaints that the information about what happens in the Netherlands upon arrest is incomprehensible. No, really, what really happens and who are the key actors?

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