One common translation problem when translating Spanish legislation into English is whether to translate artículo literally as “article” or use its legal English functional equivalent, “section”. You’re faced with a similar dilemma when translating other hierarchical elements and in particular the names of statutes. Should you translate ley as “law” or “act”?
Be consistent
The best advice I’ve come across for how to resolve this dilemma is to be consistent. If you decide to translate ley more literally as “law”, also translate artículo literally as “article”. If you translate ley as the more English-sounding “act”, then use “section” for artículo. You then apply this decision to how you translate other hierarchical elements.
Therefore, your choice comes down to whether you want a more literal or target-language oriented translation, which will depend on the type of document and the target audience.
Legal documents and expert audiences
I normally use “law” and “article” (e.g., Article X.X(x) of Spanish Law 15/1999 on Data Protection) for legal documents because these terms are more transparent and should be clear to readers if they have refer to the legislation. Additionally, the structure of hierarchical elements is not always as straightforward and consistent across legislation as you might expect, and you can make things confusing when you start looking for legal-English equivalents for other elements in the text (paragraphs, books, titles, clauses, etc.). Even if you get it right, someone using your translation to refer to the legislation may find your criteria a nightmare.
West’s suggestion in his Spanish-English dictionary to use “law” for countries in which the leyes are numbered (as they are in Spain) also originally swayed me, but then I saw he uses “act” to translate statute names. Maybe he was talking about when a document refers to a statute only by its number as sometimes happens in Spanish. In any case, using the structure “Spanish Law 15/1999 on Data Protection” gets around this problem by including the law number in the title. In legal documents, though, how you translate the name of the statute probably matters little as you will most likely also put the Spanish name and law number in somewhere for reference purposes.
You also need to consider the approach taken in any translations of the legislation that the reader might have access to on the Web. However, this kind of second guessing may be counterproductive. You may find these translations incorrect or inconsistent, and you can never be sure of which translation a reader may refer to. They may only refer to the original or may get someone else to translate parts of the original for them. Therefore, the best bet might be just to stick to your own criteria, which is always the easiest to explain and justify. Another option is to refer the reader to a translation of the legislation and stick to the conventions used there if you find them consistent and appropriate for your translation.
General texts and non-legal audiences
We can probably assume that non-legal audiences prefer functional English equivalents and would more appreciate seeing the term “act” in the names of statutes over “law”. Such readers probably don’t care either way about whether you use “article” or “section”, although you are less likely to have to translate the hierarchical elements of legislation in general texts, so you may not even have to worry about it.
Something like “Spain’s Data Protection Act” or “Spain’s equivalent to the Data Protection Act” would probably suffice in general translations, depending on the type of document.
Not black or white
My approach is not the only one; it’s just the one that makes the most sense to me at this point in time. As you can see in this ProZ discussion on the difference between “section” and “article”, there is a range of opinions on how to deal with this problem.
In any case, the most important thing when dealing with grey areas such as this one is to talk about approaches rather than absolute translation solutions. The article/section dilemma is a good example of how an overall approach can help you solve translation problems at the word level in a coherent or at least easy-to-explain or justify manner. And if it is easy to explain, so much the better, as this is precisely the type of obvious and easy-to-spot issue clients like to ask about, so you may even find yourself with a rare opportunity to talk to a client about legal translation and how you work.
Reference
West III , T.L. (2012) Spanish-English Dictionary of Law and Business, 2nd edition.