http://www.wiltsglosstandard.co.uk/news/14039610.Hearing_into___1_2m_fraud_allegedly_involving_Cirencester_man_Joao_De_Sousa_adjourned_at_Gloucester_Crown_Court/
[...] Joao De Sousa, of St Michael's Road, Cirencester, appeared at Gloucester Crown Court on Monday for an application to vary a restraint order, but the hearing was adjourned for an interpreter to attend. [...]
Wednesday, 18 November 2015
Monday, 16 November 2015
Case adjourned
http://www.granthamjournal.co.uk/news/local/grantham-court-case-of-indecent-exposure-in-park-is-adjourned-1-7067441
16 November 2015
16 November 2015
The case of
a man accused of indecent exposure in a Grantham park has been adjourned.
Karol Mogila, 27, of Albert Street, Grantham is
accused of indecently exposing himself in Dysart Park on September 5.
He appeared before Grantham magistrates on Monday,
but the case was adjourned in order to book a Polish interpreter for the
defendant. […]
Friday, 6 November 2015
Court custody: urgent improvement required
06 November 2015
Page
9
“On some occasions, difficulties with the HMCTS-managed court
interpreter contract meant the court was unable to consider bail for detainees who
could not speak English. When this happened, the lack of telephone interpreter
services meant that custody staff, despite their best efforts, could not
explain to detainees what had happened or where they were being taken.”
Page
27
“We found evidence at some courts of serious consequences for
detainees arising from the lack of suitable interpretation services, especially
where the HMCTS-commissioned court interpreter service had failed to send an
interpreter to court, a situation which could mean the court was unable to
consider bail.
‘We noted on several occasions interpreters had not attended court
and detainees had been remanded in custody. This had been noted by Lay
Observers… These difficulties were compounded because the custody staff had no
access to a telephone interpreting service in the custody suites. Consequently,
detainees refused bail could be taken to prison without understanding what had
happened in court or where they were going.’
(Norfolk and
Suffolk)”
Wednesday, 4 November 2015
"no interpreters available"
http://www.ilfordrecorder.co.uk/news/crime-court/new_court_date_set_for_man_charged_in_connection_to_ilford_stabbing_1_4296896
04 November 2015
04 November 2015
New court date set for man charged in connection to Ilford stabbing
A
new date for the preliminary hearing of a man charged in connection to a
stabbing in Ilford has been set because there were no interpreters available to
translate for the defendant.
Marcel Criahan, of Hickling Road, Ilford, appeared
at Snaresbrook Crown Court via video link yesterday after he was arrested on
October 17 in connection to an incident on the same street.
The 34-year-old was charged with GBH with intent
the following day, and appeared at Barkingside Magistrates Court on October 19.
He is now due to appear in court on November 17.
The court appearance comes after police found
Florin Onea, 49, also of Hickling Road, with a stab wound.
A murder investigation was launched after he died
on Monday, last week.
Monday, 2 November 2015
"deplorable failure"
http://www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed150974
2 November 2015
2 November 2015
"Matters
were not assisted by the deplorable failure, and not for the first time, of the
relevant contractor to provide interpreters for the final hearing arranged for
22 September 2014: compare Re Capita Translation and Interpreting Ltd [2015]
EWFC".
Migration and interpretation – a potent mix
http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/analysis/comment-and-opinion/migration-and-interpretation-a-potent-mix/5051944.article
2 November 2015 by Jonhathan Goldsmith
2 November 2015 by Jonhathan Goldsmith
Migration and interpretation – a potent mix
The current migration crisis is testing
interpreting services across Europe. What is being done to ease the burden?
There are two topics one can predict will
cause blood pressures to rise: migration, and interpreting services in courts
and police stations.
Now they have come together. The EU took a
great leap forward in guaranteeing minimum procedural rights when it passed the
directive on the right to interpretation and translation for suspects and
defendants (2010/64
EU)
– little anticipating that the great EU migration crisis of 2015 would test the
directive to its limits.
I am involved in a project funded by the
EU, looking at the national implementation of the three existing directives
guaranteeing minimum procedural safeguards. The three are the right to
interpretation and translation (already mentioned), plus the right to information
(2012/13/EU), and the right of access to a lawyer (2013/48/EU). The
underlined letters in the previous sentence give the project its name: TRAINAC.
As you may know, the UK opted in to the
first two directives, but not the third. Since my involvement means I look at
the raw data as it flows into the project, I am in a position to judge how the
UK fares relative to the other member states in its daily practices. The answer
is: pretty well.
For those who have become excited in the
past, for very good reasons, about the services provided by Capita Translation
and Interpreting, you will be interested to know that England and Wales is not
alone in outsourcing such services. The European Legal Interpreters and
Translators Association (EULITA) reports that it is a trend
in several member states.
EULITA says that experience shows that the
contracts with agencies frequently lack transparency as to the qualifications
of the people to be signed up, and as to the payments charged for
administrative services, which reduce the fees ultimately paid to interpreters.
It also notes: ‘The trend … to outsource the provision of legal interpreting
services to agencies does not contribute towards improving the quality of
interpreting services, and it occasionally compromises the fairness of
proceedings.
‘Measures such as categorising legal
interpreters according to their qualifications, with the rationale that legal
interpreters need not have top qualifications for certain types of hearings,
usually result in the lowest-tier interpreters also being assigned to all court
cases (including the most complicated ones).’
Ireland, one of the other outsourcers,
reports: ‘It is done as a national contract with no input from defence lawyers
with regard to quality for instance. The defence do not have the right to bring
a private translator publicly funded to a police station. The situation would
be different if the client could afford a translator themselves. Translators routinely
volunteer their services for languages which they are not expert in. A Russian
speaker might for instance indicate that they could satisfactorily translate
for Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians.’
The current migration crisis will impose
burdens in an area where all member states report a problem even now – finding
a service for rare languages. What is rare will vary from country to country.
For Poland, it is Chinese, Vietnamese and Kurdish; for England and Wales, Farsi
(Persian) and Kinyarwandan. The Czech Republic is alone in pointing to
something which must be a rarity everywhere: an interpreter who not only knows
legal terminology (much grumbling about that in practically every response),
but also criminal slang.
There is not always a public register of
interpreters and translators available for lawyers to consult. EULITA is trying
to resolve this by setting up, with EU funding, a single and searchable EU-wide
database of existing information, to be available on the European Commission’s e-justice
portal.
There are already various ‘Find-A’ services
on that website (Find-A-Lawyer or Find-A-Notary, for instance). There is also
an invaluable guide on the same website, searchable by clicking on the
country’s flag, to the interpreting and translating services and databases
currently publicly available in each member state.
For the UK, links are provided to the
Ministry of Justice guidance on court interpreters, the National Register of
Public Service Interpreters (NRPSI), the Association of Police and Court
Interpreters (APCI), and the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI).
EULITA hopes to bring all the national databases together, so that they can be
trawled by a single search engine.
The situation will, unfortunately, only
grow worse as more interpreters and translators are needed for the mass of new
arrivals. There is already pressure on interpreters’ fees, as a result of the
directive’s requirement that the state must pay. Poland reports that low wages
means that professional interpreters or translators are not interested in
moving to become sworn interpreters or translators (authorised for court and
legal work).
It would be interesting to undertake
another study in three years’ time, once the migration crisis is - I hope -
over.
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