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English language (monolingual) [PRO] Law/Patents - Law: Contract(s)
English term or phrase:absolute discretion
Please help! I don't quite understand "obligation of absolute discretion".
Context:
Labor contract: ... ... Article 7 - CONFIDENTIALITY The Employee is bound by an obligation of absolute discretion and by professional secrecy, that he/she commits himself/herself to observing, even after the expiry of the Contract, in respect of any act or information that he/she has come to know in the performance of his/her duties.
No, because discretion, in meaning 1., is a personal quality/characteristic, which is the ability to behave in a certain way, not to be confused with that way of behaving.
The definition is taken from the Cambridge Dictionary. Here are the full entries: 1. the ability to behave without causing embarrassment or attracting too much attention, especially by keeping information secret; 2. the right or ability to decide something; 3. choice, or the right to make a choice, based on judgment; 4. the right to choose something, or to choose to do something, according to what seems most suitable in a particular situation.
Absolute discretion, is meaningless in the context of 1. above.
Some people have formed the incorrect view that it means complete secrecy, probable for the reasons I have already stated.
1. My explanation is in English and answers the question. 2. Your contention does not seem to be supported by any reliable source. 3. How can legalese such as "obligation of absolute discretion" in a confidentiality clause not be a purported legal term? 4. The fact that many of the hits in the Google search of the EN terms are francophone plus the meaning and sources of the French legal term discrétion absolue merely suggests the source of this error.
Asker wants an explanation in English, so I see no need to discuss the French term here. That said I don't agree that it's a false friend, nor are we looking at a legal term in the true sense. It seems fairly obvious that the term is to be understood with its everyday meaning
Google searches for "obligation of absolute discretion" "duty of absolute discretion" produce a total of 13 hits of which 10 are in the context of confidentiality. It is noteworthy that many of these sources are francophone.
No English language legal dictionary I have consulted (Blacks, Jowetts, Words and Phrases Legally Defined) provides a meaning of absolute discretion that connotes confidentiality/secrecy.
Likewise, the 10 volume Oxford Dictionary gives no such meaning to the word discretion. However, Websters includes "the ability to keep a secret" as a meaning of discretion, which is nearer the mark.
One of the meanings of discrétion in French is secrecy (Larousse, Dictionnaire économique et juridique NAVARRE) and Google searches for "devoir de discrétion absolue" "obligation de discrétion absolue" produce 8700 hits.
These hits include French court judgments in which "devoir/obligation de discrétion" has exactly the meaning presumably intended in the source text.
It therefore appears that "discrétion absolue / absolute discretion" are false friends.
Yes. I usually encounter phrases like "doing something at its sole discretion/at its absolute discretion". But this one really confuses me. I'll raise a query to the client, then.
1. In a legal context, absolute discretion means the absolute and unqualified right of a person to act as they see fit, without even being subject to an obligation to act reasonably. This cannot be be the intended meaning in this confidentiality clause.
2. In a non-legal context, discretion means to behave or speak in such a way as to avoid embarrassment or distress. This meaning makes more sense in the context of a confidentiality clause, although "absolute discretion" cannot have that meaning.
The best way to deal with this sloppy drafting is probably a translator's note.
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Answers
37 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): -2
discreción absoluta
Explanation: In this case it should translated literally, since the themeaning is the same as source, "to maintain absolute and unfettered discretion