4 ms·

"We only know that he is wanted for questioning regarding crimes on this scale." While it's clear neither of us really understand Swedish criminal law procedur

by hga 12y ago

"We only know that he is wanted for questioning regarding crimes on this scale." While it's clear neither of us really understand Swedish criminal law procedures, it's beyond initial questioning (that happened 30 August 2010), it's at the point for him to be formerly arrested. It's clear in what I've been reading that the case is much further in progress than what in common law based countries is called "questioning", as a matter of Swedish legal procedure formal charging must come after the arrest.

xorcist 12y ago
Well, I understand it as well as any layman does, being local to it. You are correct that the the word "questioning" may be misleading to English speakers, who does not understand that it is part of the formal process. These things are hard to translate because you have to know so much more than just the language to understand it in context. That's why I tried to say that using words such as "rape" can be misleading if it is indeed a correct translation. The same goes for "questioning" apparently. For some reason this was downvoted so I won't dwell more on the subject.
- hga 12y ago
  The English solicitor who a lot of people have been linking to has used the word "interrogation" for this stage of the Swedish process, which sounds more accurate. Although that's not something Americans can easily understand due to our Constitutional right against self-incrimination; if we tell the authorities to stop questioning us until we get a lawyer, they must stop, and when it comes to a trial aspersions cannot be cast on the defendant for asserting this right. As I understand it the reverse is currently true for the latter in the U.K. As for "rape", per U.K. law "offense" 4 equals it, and in general, in US law it would also count as "rape" (we've got at least 52 legal definitions of that word, for D.C., the Federal government, and each of the 50 states, so I can't make a definitive statement). "Offenses" 2-3 are apparently "sexuellt ofredande"; while obviously the first word is rather easy to translate, per Wikipedia the two words have a wide variety of possible translations, as I note here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7989290 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7989290 "sexual molestation", "sexual assault", "sexual misconduct", "sexual annoyance", "sexual unfreedom", "sexual misdemeanour", and "sexual harassment". Ugh.

by hga 12y ago

xorcist 12y ago

Well, I understand it as well as any layman does, being local to it. You are correct that the the word "questioning" may be misleading to English speakers, who does not understand that it is part of the formal process. These things are hard to translate because you have to know so much more than just the language to understand it in context. That's why I tried to say that using words such as "rape" can be misleading if it is indeed a correct translation. The same goes for "questioning" apparently. For some reason this was downvoted so I won't dwell more on the subject.

hga 12y ago
The English solicitor who a lot of people have been linking to has used the word "interrogation" for this stage of the Swedish process, which sounds more accurate. Although that's not something Americans can easily understand due to our Constitutional right against self-incrimination; if we tell the authorities to stop questioning us until we get a lawyer, they must stop, and when it comes to a trial aspersions cannot be cast on the defendant for asserting this right. As I understand it the reverse is currently true for the latter in the U.K. As for "rape", per U.K. law "offense" 4 equals it, and in general, in US law it would also count as "rape" (we've got at least 52 legal definitions of that word, for D.C., the Federal government, and each of the 50 states, so I can't make a definitive statement). "Offenses" 2-3 are apparently "sexuellt ofredande"; while obviously the first word is rather easy to translate, per Wikipedia the two words have a wide variety of possible translations, as I note here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7989290 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7989290 "sexual molestation", "sexual assault", "sexual misconduct", "sexual annoyance", "sexual unfreedom", "sexual misdemeanour", and "sexual harassment". Ugh.