The European Court of Justice has embarked on a new drive to find Maltese lawyers to join its team to translate legal documents at its Luxembourg headquarters.

EPSO, the EU's recruitment agency, has published a new call for Maltese lawyers, closing later this month, and the head of the Maltese Translation Unit at the ECJ, Joseph Izzo Clarke, is on a mission in Malta specifically aimed at informing all those interested on the new opportunities. He will hold meetings with the organisations representing the legal profession and the Faculty of Law at the University.

The ECJ employs 22 Maltese lawyer-linguists on a full-time basis. However, due to a higher work demand and staff turnover, the ECJ is trying to build a new reserve list of Maltese lawyers willing to take up a new highly-paid job in the Grand Duchy.

"It is quite difficult to find the right people we need as, due to our specialised requirements, we only recruit members of the legal profession as translators," Mr Izzo Clarke said.

"When you consider Malta's small population and the fact that French is not the most widely spoken language in Malta our task is quite complicated," he said.

The legal documents produced by the ECJ are very specific in nature and, like those produced by other national courts, interpret community law and apply it, together with a number of established legal principles of the Community, to specific cases.

Asked about the standard of Maltese language legal documents produced by the ECJ, Mr Izzo Clarke said there was a remarkable progress since Malta joined the EU in 2004 but more had to be done.

"As far as the Court is concerned, we have always strived to ensure a high standard, both from the legal and linguistic point of view," Mr Izzo Clarke said.

Maltese lawyer-linguists can expect to take home a monthly salary of €6,000 apart from many other benefits.