Multilingual federal law and the practice of legal translation

Three equally authentic versions

Swiss federal law exists in three equally binding language versions. Article 14 of the Federal Act on the Compilations of Federal Legislation and the Federal Gazette, the Publications Act (Publikationsgesetz, PublG, SR 170.512), provides that publication takes place simultaneously in the official languages German, French and Italian and that, in the case of enactments, the three versions are equally binding. Publication of texts in Romansh is governed by Article 11 of the Languages Act of 5 October 2007. Texts of particular importance or of international interest may be published on the publication platform in further languages, in particular in English.¹ The principle of equal authenticity rests on the constitutional status of the official languages under Article 70 of the Federal Constitution and on the Languages Act, which the Federal Chancellery cites together with the Languages Ordinance and the Language Services Ordinance as the legal basis of its language policy.²

Equal authenticity has consequences for the interpretation of law. No language version enjoys priority as a matter of law. Where the versions diverge, the courts must establish the true meaning of the provision by the usual methods of interpretation, using each language version as an aid to understanding the others. The Federal Council emphasised in a report of 2016 on the binding force of the consolidated collection that the difficulties of interpretation resulting from several equally valid language versions should not be compounded by further sources of uncertainty.³ For practitioners the rule means that a careful reading of a Swiss statute may require a glance at the French and Italian texts. A term that appears ambiguous in German may be clear in French, or the other way round. Advisers who read only the German version, as many German lawyers naturally do, therefore miss part of the law.

The reality of German as the source language

Equal authenticity in law coexists with unequal weight in the drafting process. A final report of the National Research Programme 56, written by Marco Borghi, Isolde Burr and Rainer J. Schweizer on the juridical and linguistic analysis of Swiss multilingual legislation, found that German functioned as the de facto source text of federal legislation, with the French and Italian versions produced essentially as translations. Using the example of the Federal Vocational Training Act, the authors observed that the expert commission consisted predominantly of German speakers and that the German version acquired special significance as the reference text. Because the time between parliamentary adoption and publication was short, residual inconsistencies escaped the attention of the language editors, while the feedback of translators was taken into account only insufficiently and unsystematically. The Italian version was merely carried along, while the Romansh version received hardly any scrutiny at all.⁴

The predominance of German in federal legislation is an advantage for Zurich and for the German-speaking clients of its financial centre. If the findings of the National Research Programme hold for federal legislation generally, most federal financial market legislation, including the Banking Act, the Financial Market Infrastructure Act, the Financial Services Act and the Financial Institutions Act, will have been drafted largely in German. The explanatory reports of the Federal Council, the dispatches to Parliament and the FINMA circulars are usually available in German and French, frequently with German as the language of first drafting. A German client reading a Swiss financial statute in German therefore reads the version that most closely reflects the thinking of its drafters. The advantage has a counterpart in Geneva and Lausanne, where lawyers and scholars sometimes observe that the French version of federal law bears the marks of translation.

The federal administration has invested heavily in the quality of its multilingual texts. The Federal Chancellery maintains central language services for German, French and Italian together with a terminology section. It coordinates translation throughout the administration and reviews draft legislation in an internal editorial commission, which checks the different language versions against each other before they are submitted to Parliament.⁵ The editorial commission is the institutional answer to the problems identified by the National Research Programme. Although the process remains short of genuine co-drafting, the commission ensures that the three language versions are compared before adoption, so that the most obvious discrepancies are removed.

TERMDAT and the infrastructure of terminology

Behind the translation practice stands a terminology database that deserves to be counted among the less visible assets of the financial centre. TERMDAT, maintained by the terminology section of the central language services of the Federal Chancellery, contains around 400,000 multilingual entries in the four national languages and in English. It covers fields from education and energy to finance, trade, informatics and the economy, with a particular emphasis on the terminology of federal law. Since its opening to the public it has been freely accessible on the internet. The multilingual cantons of Bern, Fribourg, Graubünden and Valais contribute entries through a coordination body for terminological cooperation called CoTerm.⁶

For lawyers and translators working between Swiss and foreign law, TERMDAT fulfils two functions. It provides authoritative equivalents for Swiss legal terms in the other official languages, which is indispensable when a German-language contract must be reconciled with a French-language judgment or a Geneva land register extract. It also offers English equivalents used by the federal administration, which helps to standardise the English terminology of Swiss law. A consistent English vocabulary for Swiss legal concepts is a precondition for Swiss law to function as a law of choice in international contracts, because parties can only choose a law they are able to read. TERMDAT contributes to that readability in the same way that commentaries and textbooks contribute to its doctrinal accessibility.

English translations without legal force

The Confederation publishes English translations of a growing number of federal acts on its publication platform Fedlex. These translations carry a standard notice: “English is not an official language of the Swiss Confederation. This translation is provided for information purposes only and has no legal force.” When the English translation of the Federal Act on Private International Law was published in February 2021, a commentator described its status as “officially non-official, but unofficially official”.⁷ The formula captures the position precisely. English translations are prepared and published by the state and are used daily by international clients, foreign lawyers and arbitral tribunals. In court, however, only the German, French and Italian texts count. An English-language contract governed by Swiss law is thus interpreted, in the event of a dispute, against a statute whose binding versions the parties may not be able to read.

The Swiss practice resembles that of other non-English-speaking jurisdictions that wish to be accessible to international business. Germany publishes English translations of important statutes such as the BGB, the HGB and the ZPO on the official portal Gesetze im Internet, likewise without legal force.⁸ What distinguishes Switzerland is that its law already exists in three authentic languages, so that an English translation is a fourth version of a multilingual law. Swiss lawyers are accustomed to the idea that the same rule can be expressed in several languages. That habit makes them comparatively comfortable with English as a working language of Swiss law, even where English has no formal standing.

Notes

Universität Zürich, Zentrum für Rechtsetzungslehre, Rechtsetzungslehre, autumn semester 2019, slides 5, https://www.ius.uzh.ch/dam/jcr:451cdba3-c25d-41bd-8782-14e3238e095e/RSL_Folien_5.pdf, quoting Art. 14 PublG: “Die Veröffentlichung erfolgt gleichzeitig in den Amtssprachen Deutsch, Französisch und Italienisch. Bei Erlassen sind die drei Fassungen in gleicher Weise verbindlich.” ↩
Schweizerische Bundeskanzlei, “Sprachpolitik”, https://bk.admin.ch/bk/de/home/regierungsunterstuetzung/sprachen/sprachpolitik.html. The page states that the Chancellery ensures that the Federal Council and the federal administration communicate coherently in the three official languages, with Romansh or English added in particular cases. ↩
Federal Council, Veröffentlichung von Gesetzen. Rechtsverbindlichkeit der konsolidierten Fassung, report of 19 October 2016 in response to postulate 14.3319, https://www.admin.ch/dam/gov/de/Bundesrecht/Suche-und-Neuigkeiten/Postulat-14.3319.pdf.download.pdf/14.3319.pdf. ↩
Marco Borghi, Isolde Burr and Rainer J. Schweizer, Schlussbericht: Juristisch-linguistische Untersuchungen von Rechtstexten der schweizerischen offiziellen Mehrsprachigkeit, National Research Programme 56, https://media.snf.ch/q6ShGM38S3a6AIk/nfp56_schlussbericht_schweizer.pdf. The report contrasts the federal practice with the co-drafting of the Fribourg cantonal constitution by integrated editorial commissions. ↩
Schweizerische Bundeskanzlei, “Sprachpolitik”, loc. cit. The page states that federal authorities must use appropriate, clear and citizen-friendly language. ↩
Schweizerische Bundeskanzlei, “TERMDAT – die Terminologie-Datenbank der Bundesverwaltung”, https://www.bk.admin.ch/bk/de/home/dokumentation/sprachen/termdat.html. ↩
Conflict of Laws.net, “Out now: the Swiss IPRG in English”, February 2021, https://conflictoflaws.net/2021/out-now-the-swiss-iprg-in-english/. ↩
Gesetze im Internet, “Translations”, https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/Teilliste_translations.html, listing translations of, among others, the BGB, HGB, ZPO, GmbHG and AktG, with the notice that discrepancies in the translations “are not binding and have no legal effect for compliance or enforcement purposes”. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of September 2025.

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