Court Interpreting

The courtroom is another important site that requires the presence of interpreters. The courtroom is but a symbol of all the places where you might need legal assistance, like the lawyer’s office or police station. It is very important especially for the accused to understand the proceedings of the law. Suppose the accused is an Indian maid in the Middle East, who cannot understand or speak Arabic. She would not be in the know of things, least of all comprehend the complexities of the law. An interpreter would be necessary to explain all this to her. Moreover, if she is testifying in a court of law, she would have to answer both defence and prosecution lawyers satisfactorily.

Muhammad Gamal points out that court interpreting rose to prominence in the west with the Nuremberg trials that tried Nazi war criminals. Like other forms of interpreting, this too makes use of various strategies of interpreting like the consecutive and simultaneous. However it is different: “Irrespective of the range of techniques it uses, what most distinguishes court interpreting from other forms of interpreting is its close attention to ethical issues which arise out of the function of the courtroom” (53).   Interpreters play a crucial role especially with court testimony. The interpreters will have to translate not just the words and sentences, but also the fumbles, slight pauses, and stutters of the witness or accused because these paralinguistic features might provide crucial insights into the character of the person deposing in the court.

The European Convention on Human Rights and the American Convention on Human Rights have acknowledged the right to an interpreter in court as a legal right. However, this has not become a law even in most countries of the west. India does provide for interpreters in court. For instance, Muhammed Ajmal Kasab the Pakistani terrorist accused in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, was provided with an Urdu interpreter after he complained that he could not follow court proceedings in English. The judge did not know Urdu either. So the services of an interpreter were called for.

Interpreting is another area of translation that has not been adequately studied by translation theorists.