French legal language rests on a two-century tradition of codes, while French medical documentation follows the strict formats of the state healthcare system. In both fields the wrong choice of a term is not a simple awkwardness but a legal or clinical risk: a contract clause that means a different obligation in French, or a dosage that changed in translation. This page describes how we work on French legal and medical texts, which systemic differences the client should know, and what the specific bodies of France, Belgium and Switzerland require.
Two civil law systems that still differ
The Georgian Civil Code was created in 1997 on the model of German law, while the French Civil Code has followed its own path since 1804. Both are civil law, but the division of concepts does not always coincide. The French "obligation de moyens" and "obligation de résultat" (obligation of means and obligation of result) do not exist as separate terms in the Georgian code and need a descriptive wording in translation. The French "clause résolutoire" corresponds to the Georgian condition for withdrawal from a contract, but the mechanism of its automatic operation is different. The French "astreinte", a court penalty for every day of delay, finds no direct analogue in the Georgian system. When translating these concepts we keep to the principle: the original term stays in brackets, the Georgian equivalent is functional, and on critical clauses a translator's note points the lawyer to the difference.
Contract translation: structure and formulas
A French commercial contract consists of standard blocks: "entre les soussignés", "il a été convenu ce qui suit", "objet", "durée", "prix et modalités de paiement", "résiliation", "droit applicable et juridiction compétente". A Georgian contract uses a similar but not identical structure, and in the translation the order of the blocks stays unchanged, so that both parties' lawyers can compare the clauses easily. The "droit applicable" clause requires particular attention: if the contract is governed by French law, the Georgian translation is for information and the French text prevails, which must be noted in the very title of the translation. In bilingual contracts, where both versions have equal force, the translation goes through double legal editing, because any difference in meaning becomes grounds for a future dispute.
Corporate documents and the commercial register
The extract of French companies (extrait Kbis), the articles (statuts), the shareholders' agreement (pacte d'associés) and the minutes of meetings are translated into Georgian when a French company registers an enterprise in Georgia, opens a bank account or takes part in a tender. French legal forms (SARL, SAS, SA, SCI, EURL) do not coincide one-to-one with Georgian forms: the flexible governance structure of the SAS, where the articles define almost everything, does not match the mandatory norms of a Georgian joint-stock company, while the SCI, a civil real estate company, does not exist in the Georgian system at all. In the translation we keep such forms with the original abbreviation and attach a functional explanation. In the opposite direction the articles of a Georgian LLC become "statuts de la société à responsabilité limitée" in French, and a Georgian "partner" is "associé" in French and not "partenaire", which is a frequent mistake.
Court documents and the French court system
The French court system is divided into two independent branches: civil-criminal (tribunal judiciaire, cour d'appel, Cour de cassation) and administrative (tribunal administratif, cour administrative d'appel, Conseil d'État). This division does not exist in the Georgian system, so in the translation of a French decision the name of the court must be carried over so that a Georgian judge correctly perceives the instance and jurisdiction. The text of a French decision uses strict formulas: "attendu que", "par ces motifs", "le tribunal statuant publiquement", and these formulas are translated into Georgian in court style, without a word-for-word calque. The "exécutoire" entry and the "signification" (service) data require separate attention, as they are decisive in the recognition and enforcement procedure.
Notarial deeds and real estate
The French notarial deed ("acte authentique") is the dominant form in the sale and purchase of real estate, gifts, marriage contracts and wills, and its structure is foreign to a Georgian notary: a multi-page "comparution", where the parties are identified in detail, "désignation", the cadastral description of the property, "origine de propriété", the history of ownership, and "déclarations". A Georgian notary or the Public Registry sees this document when French property is inherited in Georgia or a French notarial power of attorney is used in a Georgian transaction. In the translation cadastral designations, areas and numbers stay unchanged, while French forms of ownership ("indivision", "usufruit", "nue-propriété") are carried over with the terminology of the Georgian Civil Code: co-ownership, usufruct, bare ownership.
Family law: marriage, divorce, maintenance
The cases of mixed Georgian-French families concern the law of both countries. The French marriage contract ("contrat de mariage") defines the property regime (communauté réduite aux acquêts, séparation de biens), which is an unusual level of detail for the Georgian system and requires an exact explanation of the regime in the translation. A French divorce decision contains the details of the child's place of residence, the "droit de visite et d'hébergement" (right of visit and accommodation) and maintenance ("pension alimentaire", "contribution à l'entretien et à l'éducation"), and these clauses are translated with numerical and legal precision for enforcement in Georgia. Since 2017 divorce by mutual consent in France takes place without a court, by an agreement drawn up by lawyers and registered with a notary, and the Georgian recognition of such a document needs a separate procedural explanation, which we reflect in the note accompanying the translation.
French medical documentation: structure and terminology
A French hospital discharge letter ("compte rendu d'hospitalisation" or "lettre de sortie") follows standard blocks: "motif d'hospitalisation", "antécédents", "histoire de la maladie", "examen clinique", "examens complémentaires", "évolution", "traitement de sortie". For a Georgian doctor this structure is understandable, but the terminology is often built on French abbreviations (HTA, BPCO, IDM, AVC, EFR), which do not match the international English-Latin abbreviations. Our medical translators expand these abbreviations into a full Georgian diagnosis and attach the international variant in brackets. In the case of medicines, French trade names (Doliprane, Kardégic, Lévothyrox) are not known in Georgia, so the international nonproprietary name (paracetamol, acetylsalicylic acid, levothyroxine) is added in the translation, so that the Georgian doctor continues the therapy correctly.
Medical translation for treatment in France
Georgian patients go to French clinics for the treatment of oncological, cardiac surgery and rare diseases, and a French clinic requests the full medical history in French before the consultation. This covers discharge summaries, histology reports, imaging descriptions and laboratory results, where the unit system must be comparable: Georgian laboratories sometimes use different units from French ones (for example, glucose in mmol/L and not in g/L), and in the translation the unit stays unchanged, but a note on the unit is added. French clinics often require a "devis", that is, a preliminary cost estimate of treatment, which is then submitted in Georgian to a Georgian insurance company or charitable foundation, and this translation in the opposite direction is our work too.
A doctor's professional recognition in France
For doctors who graduated outside France, the way to working in France passes through the professional recognition procedure ("procédure d'autorisation d'exercice"), which includes knowledge verification exams (EVC) and registration with the medical order. For the application the diploma, the document confirming specialisation, certificates of practice and letters confirming professional experience are translated into French, while the Ministry of Health requires an official translation, that is, one by a sworn translator or an apostilled notarized one. In this translation the specifics of the Georgian medical education system (single-cycle programme, residency, state certificate) must be explained in the terms of the French system (diplôme d'État, internat, DES), so that the content is not distorted. In the case of nurses and pharmacists the procedure is different, but the document package is similar.
Insurance and social documents
The French social insurance system (Sécurité sociale, CPAM, mutuelle) uses its own document forms: "attestation de droits", "feuille de soins", "arrêt de travail", "certificat médical". These documents are translated into Georgian when a person insured in France is treated in Georgia and claims reimbursement of costs, or a Georgian worker in France submits a certificate of temporary incapacity for work. In the opposite direction a Georgian insurance policy, a certificate of health (Form 100) and a document confirming disability status are translated into French, where the Georgian disability groups do not coincide one-to-one with the French "taux d'incapacité" system and need a descriptive explanation.
Pharmaceutical and clinical trial documentation
French pharmaceutical companies register preparations in Georgia and take part in clinical trials, which means documents moving in both directions: the French summary of product characteristics (RCP, résumé des caractéristiques du produit) and the patient leaflet are translated into Georgian for registration, while the opinion of a Georgian research centre's ethics committee and the informed consent form are translated into French. These texts require regulatory terminology, where every term has an official equivalent, and our translators use the French terminology base of the European Medicines Agency, so that the translation is consistent with French regulatory texts.
Employment contracts and employment in France
When a Georgian specialist is employed in France, the work visa ("passeport talent" or "salarié") is issued on the basis of a French employment contract, and this contract (CDI, open-ended, or CDD, fixed-term) is translated into Georgian when a Georgian bank, body or the spouse's visa application requires confirmation of income. French labour law is detailed: "période d'essai" (probation period), "convention collective" (sectoral collective agreement), "préavis" (notice period), "mutuelle obligatoire" (mandatory supplementary insurance) either do not exist in the Georgian Labour Code or exist with a different scope, and the translation conveys these concepts with an explanation. In the opposite direction a Georgian employment contract is translated into French for a French employer or the French social service, where the Georgian income tax and pension contribution system needs comparison with the French "cotisations sociales".
Belgian and Swiss legal particularities
A French-language legal document does not always come from France. Belgian documents are divided between federal and regional (Wallonia, Brussels) competences, and the forms of Belgian companies (SRL, SA) changed with the 2019 Companies Code, so "SPRL" in old documents and "SRL" in new ones are different names of the same form, which must be reflected in the translation with a note. In Switzerland the French-speaking cantons (Geneva, Vaud, Neuchâtel, Jura, part of Fribourg and Valais) apply federal law with cantonal procedures, and the Swiss "Sàrl" and "SA" resemble the French forms, but the capital requirements and the structure of the register ("registre du commerce" at cantonal level) are different. Our legal translators work with the documents of all three jurisdictions and take the source country's system into account in the translation, so that the Georgian reader does not "re-translate" a Belgian document into a French one.
Intellectual property and licensing
When French brands, technologies and franchises enter Georgia, licence agreements, trademark registration documents and franchising manuals are translated. The French Intellectual Property Code subjects "droit d'auteur" (copyright, which, unlike the Anglo-Saxon "copyright", gives special importance to moral rights), "marque", "brevet" and "dessins et modèles" to separate regulation, and these categories are carried over with the corresponding terms of Georgian legislation. Documents to be submitted to Sakpatenti (a certificate of priority, an assignment agreement) need a notarized translation, while franchising operating manuals, which are hundreds of pages, are translated with a single terminology base and staged delivery.
Confidentiality and data protection
Legal and medical documents contain the client's most sensitive information, and the French side looks at this especially strictly: the European data protection regulation (RGPD in French terminology) treats medical data as a special category. With us every order is processed under a signed confidentiality agreement, documents are received over encrypted channels and after completion of the translation the files are deleted at the client's request. The translator has access only to the document they are working on, and in the case of medical histories, at the client's wish, the name is given to the translator in anonymised form and returns to the final document only at the last stage.
Which documents are translated in this field
- commercial and employment contracts, shareholders' agreements, licence agreements
- extrait Kbis, statuts, procès-verbaux and the Georgian extract, articles, minutes of a meeting
- court decisions, claims, lawyers' opinions, arbitral awards
- notarial deeds, powers of attorney, wills, marriage contracts
- discharge letters, histology and radiology reports, laboratory results
- doctor's diploma, specialisation certificate, certificate of practice for the recognition procedure
- insurance certificates, sick leave certificates, disability documents
- pharmaceutical registration documentation and clinical trial forms
Who translates and how quality is checked
With us a translator with a legal education or many years of experience in legal translation works on legal text, and on medical text a translator specialised in medical terminology who consults a practising doctor where necessary. In both cases a second specialist checks the text terminologically and numerically: dates, amounts, doses, cadastral numbers and clause numbering are compared with the source by a separate list. A document intended for official purposes is finally notarized by a translator registered with a notary in the French-Georgian pair, and for France an apostille is placed as needed.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Georgian translation of a French contract legally binding?
Only if the contract itself provides for the equal force of both versions. If the contract is governed by French law and the French text prevails, the Georgian translation is for information, which we indicate in the title.
Can you translate a French discharge summary urgently?
Yes. Express mode applies to medical documents, and a discharge letter of a few pages is ready in 2-4 hours during working hours, subject to the medical translator's availability.
Are French trade names of medicines translated?
The trade name stays unchanged, but the international nonproprietary name is added in the translation, so that the Georgian doctor and pharmacist identify the preparation.
What does a Georgian doctor need for recognition in France?
An official French translation of the diploma, specialisation and certificates of practice, usually apostilled. The procedure itself concerns the Ministry of Health and the medical order, we prepare the documentary part.
Does a French notarial deed need recognition in Georgia?
Yes, with an apostille and a notarized translation. If the deed concerns real estate, the Public Registry requires an exact translation of the cadastral data, which we check with particular attention.
Do you have a terminology base for French law?
Yes, with long-term clients we create a glossary in which every term is approved once. This is especially important when the same parties sign several contracts.
Do you keep my medical documents?
After delivery of the translation the files are deleted at the client's request. As standard we keep them for a limited period so that we can prepare a correction or an additional copy quickly, and only the translator working on the project has access.