This paper examines the jurists' perception of legislative translation through an analysis of the literature published over the last thirty years. The analysis shows that translation has long been seen as a process that, resulting in a negative perception of the final product (the translated text), distorts the translator's profession. At first stigmatized because of the numerous calques which appeared in the federal statutes translated into French, translation was criticized for other reasons: it was considered to be a secondary or derivate. Still, today, there are jurists for whom translating is a simple process which requires no creativity.