A quick trawl of Google’s collation of world news on any given week leaves no doubt as to the serious implications of poor or indeed absent translation.
A man accused of murder in New Jersey is now being seen by supporters as having his human rights trampled, after a police interpreter failed to translate his request for a lawyer, while in custody.
Authorities had said that the Ecuadorian national had confessed to the murder of his wife, but now the matter is in doubt. By not directly translating the defendant, there had been an assumption that the man had waived his rights to an attorney. When a video of the interview was produced the oversight was exposed.
In New York, a Greek interpreter was dismissed by a judge for failure to interpret in a satisfactory and fluid way.
The incident occurred during the trial of Israel Feliciano, 41, who’s accused of murdering a Pizza Store Manager. The interpreter in question was deemed not good enough to translate the testimony of the murdered man’s wife, who had witnessed the crime.
The judge had the Greek interpreter replaced after noticing that the victim’s wife was unable to understand her.
Meanwhile in Ontario, Canada, it’s an altogether different problem, where it’s not about the quality but rather the quantity of interpreters available to courts.
For the want of a fully accredited Mandarin interpreter a high profile court case has been affected. Toronto grocer David Chen was in the dock controversially accused of a citizen’s arrest of a thief near his store. Chen was due to face charges of forcible confinement and assault of the thief.
It also should be noted that there is a high failure rate (34%) in tests to qualify court interpreters in Ontario, as that province rightly maintains a high quality service, and screens candidates to ensure they are meeting the level required.
That’s not unlike the quality required to be a translator or interpreter with Today Translations, where only the cream of the crop of linguistic talent are chosen to meet our clients’ needs.
