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Vol/53 No/6 2014 DECEMBEr 2014/JAnUArY 2015 The Linguist 11 THRELFORD LECTURE They hope this will get the observations in front of the Court that they would normally put in writing, but the text doesn't work orally. some advocates speak clearly, in short sentences, and flag where they are going; others do not and are a nightmare to interpret. I remember, as a référendaire, a discussion at a hearing between the reporting judge, Gordon slynn, and English counsel. They were getting on famously. Gordon asked one final question and counsel answered it. Then, with the air of a man who was putting the finishing touch in place, he said: 'Indeed, one might say, my Lord, that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.' Of course, Gordon laughed, while everyone else sat waiting… and waiting. Eventually, the French interpreter, who was a very experienced colleague, leant forward, punched the button on her microphone with a certain viciousness, and said, in a very cold voice: Il vient de raconter une blague sur la volaille ('He's just told a joke about poultry'). It was inspired, because everyone laughed. The oil in the machinery Outside the formal structures, there is a lot of 'improvising around the edges' – dealing with ridiculous situations in a multilingual court, because you have to deal with them somehow. shortly after going to the CJEU, I worked on Case C-467/04 Gasparini: a juicy, complicated case about the principle in criminal law of ne bis in idem, and free movement rights under the schengen Agreement. Essentially, some people had been prosecuted in portugal but got off without a trial because the prosecution had overrun the limitation period for trying those offences and the case was thrown out. They went to spain and the authorities there tried to run a second prosecution. preparing the case as a brand new Advocate General, I was puzzled by one of the questions referred, so at the hearing I asked about it. Counsel for Mr Gasparini knew very little about EU law, but those representing him included counsel from both the spanish and the portuguese prosecutions. The latter were sure that the answer was (somewhere) in the judgment of the Coimbra Criminal Court. I hadn't seen this piece of paper; nor had my référendaire. After the hearing was over, I sent him off to search the registry. Eventually, at the back of a cupboard, he found two lever arch files sent by the national court. There was no index with the order for reference, nor anything to alert anyone to the existence of these additional documents. There, sure enough, was the judgment of the Coimbra court – a mere 120 pages – alongside the appeal judgment, which was another 70. Fortunately, my référendaire and I could both speed-read the original portuguese and sort out the problem. What would we have done if it had been Lithuanian? My second example illustrates a wonderful collaboration from translation. I was doing some cases involving taxes on second-hand cars. As new Member states joined the EU, the pool of used BMWs and Mercedes in Germany moved east to the Czech republic and Hungary, and on to romania and Bulgaria. These Member states started to impose swingeing registration taxes. The question was whether the taxes were protecting domestic cars and therefore contrary to the Treaty. The order for reference for my Hungarian case (C-290/05 nádasdi) THE SHOW MUST GO ON Eleanor Sharpston delivers her Threlford Memorial Lecture at Members' Day in October Depending on which language version you were using, either the case was inadmissible or it was important