Definition (English):—
Definition (Spanish):—
Comments:Prejudice is one of those terms that legal intepreters and translators love to fight over. This is the situation: In English, we have these two terms, 'with' and 'without prejudice', and they mean, essentially, that (in general) the same charges or case could, or could not, be filed again. Interestingly, this meaning of prejudice, while used in Black's, is not defined. This is related to the concept of res judicata, also known as cosa juzgada, which Black's gives as "1. An issue that has been definitively settled by judicial decision. 2. An affirmative defense barring the same parties from litigating a second lawsuit on the same claim, or any other claim arising from the same transaction or series of transactions and that could have been--but was not--raised in the first suit." That second definition is the meaning given by Black's for prejudice. So while the concepts are almost identical, their usage is not. In addition, there is, in Spanish, the concept of firme, defined by the DEJ of the RAE as, "Adm. y Proc. Dicho de un acto o resolución administrativa o judicial: Invariable, por no haber sido impugnado o no admitir recurso." Frequently, this is used to express whether a sentence is firme o no. In a way, this is a good thing for us translators and interpreters--it gives us power to decide how we want to express the concept. The flip side to this is that we need to understand the different concepts and deploy them properly. This particular usage--'the application has been withdrawn with prejudice'--could, for example, be rendered as se ha retirado la solicitud definitivamente, or perhaps se ha retirado la solicitud de manera firme, but definitely not se ha retirado la solicitud con fuerza de cosa juzgada, because after all, a decision has not been made about the application. If it were regarding a criminal case, or even an individual hearing on an application for relief, our options are different. For additional consideration, see entries on 'sobreseimiento' and 'desestimación' in the 'Decisions and Appeals' reference.