Lost in Translation? Examining the Role of Court Interpreters in Cases Involving Foreign National Defendants in England and Wales

Abstract

Court interpreters have seldom been featured in studies on the criminal courts. Until recently, cases requiring court interpreters were rare and marginal. The peculiarity and historical rarity of these cases may explain the lack of academic consideration of the work of court interpreters in the criminal justice literature. Rapid demographic changes brought about by mass migration, however, are changing the make-up of criminal justice proceedings, rendering court interpreters key participants and inexorable aides for the everyday running of the criminal justice system. This article examines the increased reliance on interpreters and the nature of their involvement in criminal justice proceedings. It will explore the relationship between interpreters and defendants, on the one hand, and between interpreters, counsels, and judges, on the other. Drawing on empirical data stemming from a research project on foreign national defendants conducted in Birmingham’s criminal courts, we explore issues of trust and reliability underpinning the intervention of court interpreters and the implications of these interventions for the defendant’s case. The use of interpreters aims first and foremost to ensure the defendant’s right to defense. Yet, as we show, their intervention is often propelled or hindered by instrumental, procedural, or logistical reasons, intimately linked to the rapid transformation of the demography of defendants and the privatization of services related to the criminal justice system.

Court Interpreters and the Political Economy of Bail in Three Arraignment Courts

“…Angermeyer (2015) further shows that boundary‐making by interpreters is embedded in their use of first and third‐person pronouns (“ I understand the nature of the charges” vs. “ He understands the nature of the charges”) and that these strategies often depend on case and source characteristics (Berk‐Seligson 1990). These and other studies consistently report that when there are overlapping exchanges, interpreters typically translate what the person in highest authority says, often omitting comments by LEP people of lesser courtroom status (Angelelli 2015; Aliverti and Seoighe 2017).…”

“…Interpreters negotiate competing allegiances with principal actors and with defendants, combining their professional demeanor with the “emotional labor” (Carstensen and Dahlberg 2017) implied by the “constant suspicion of infidelity” (Hale 2004, 1; see also Ahmad 2006). Court users, too, might either see interpreters as extensions of the judge or the prosecutor or as providers of advice, assistance, and moral support (Aliverti and Seoighe 2017).…”

“…However, much like the protagonist of Kafka's The Trial , LEP court users with unmet language needs are often not only “virtually absent from their own proceedings” (Davis et al 2004, 3) but also face “ill‐defined” parameters to enable their participation (Ahmad 2006, 1018). Language barriers can undermine guarantees such as the right to a trial by jury or a probable‐cause hearing (Cole and Maslow‐Armand 1997; U.S. Department of Justice 2016) or weaken a defendant's or witness's perceived credibility (Hale 2014; Aliverti and Seoighe 2017). The unmet needs of LEP persons also carry broader consequences: if the court does not provide interpreters in a timely fashion, or not at all, cases can be delayed and decisions can be vacated.…”

“…2 Interpretation issues are increasingly prominent for immigration hearings (Ryo 2016), client–counsel interactions (Ahmad 2006), and small‐claims courts (Argenmeyer 2015). Language assistance in these and other legal settings is often delivered unevenly, with little standardized training or litigation (Berk‐Seligson 1990; Davis et al 2004; Chang 2008; Aliverti and Seoighe 2017; Carstensen and Dahlberg 2017).…”

The Criminal Justice Voluntary Sector: Concepts and an Agenda for an Emerging Field

“…Restructuring has created complex, ill‐understood governance formations and partnership working (Goddard and Myers ; Kaufman ), overlaid upon long‐standing, similarly ill‐understood criminal justice volunteers and voluntary organisation (CJVVO) activity. For‐profit justice involvement has attracted wide‐ranging interest, for example in: policing (White ); court interpreters (Aliverti and Seoighe ); court escort (Whitehead ); prison (Burkhardt ); community supervision (Deering and Feilzer ); and electronic monitoring (Hucklesby ). Yet, CJVVOs have not received attention commensurate with their importance anywhere in the world .…”