Meaning of sutki

[Paul B. Gallagher]

Dear Russophiles,

I've already posted this query to a translators' list and gotten quite
the interesting discussion. So I thought I'd ask the academics for their
perspective...

In translating the following bit out of the RF Administrative Law Code
(Кодекс об административных правонарушениях):

        Протокол об административном правонарушении составляется
        немедленно после выявления совершения административного
        правонарушения. В случае, если требуется дополнительное
        выяснение обстоятельств дела либо данных о физическом
        лице или сведений о юридическом лице, в отношении которых
        возбуждается дело об административном правонарушении,
        протокол об административном правонарушении составляется
        в течение двух ***суток*** с момента выявления
        административного правонарушения.

Should I take the deadline as two calendar days (два дня), or 48 hours
on the clock? In other words, is there a significant difference between
одни сутки and один день?

Additional background:

In the 27,000-word excerpt I have to translate, there are 38 instances
of день/дня/дней (whole words only) and 15 of сутки/сутков (whole words
only), so this is not an issue of bureaucratic style permitting one form
and not the other. And we should probably assume multiple authors and
multiple revisions of the Code.

Values used with "сутки" range from one, two, or three up to 15 or 30.
Certainly I will not attempt to render "тридцать суток" as "720 hours,"
but with values from one to three, 24-72 hours seems like a plausible
option. What say you?

TIA

--
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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