The Japanese “theory of presupposed ultimate facts” (called “Yokenjijitsu-ron” in Japanese) for interpreting the Japanese civil code has been underway for over forty years mainly by judges in the Japanese Legal Training Institute, but not yet formalized in a mathematical way. This paper attempts to mathematically formalize this theory and presents the correspondence between the theory and logic...

The Health Care Decisions Act provides considerable flexibility and autonomy for patients regarding advance directives and surrogate decision making and clarifies how patients can tell their physicians and the world in general what they would like to have happen if they become incapable of making their own health care decisions. The law, however, is complex. This article provides help for physi...

In court interpreting, the law distinguishes between the prescribed activity of what it considers translation – defined as an objective, mechanistic, transparent process in which the interpreter acts as a mere conduit of words – and the proscribed activity of interpretation, which involves interpreters decoding and attempting to convey their understanding of speaker meanings and intentions. Thi...

Videoconference (VC) systems have been used in courts in England and Wales for more than fifteen years. However, it can be argued that research into how new technologies and interpreters interact in legal settings is still in its infancy. The aim of this article is to analyse whether court interpreters perceive their role differently when they interpret through VC systems, and whether the locat...