LEGAL T&I
Chief Justice Helen Bowskill – the second female chief justice of the Supreme Court of Queensland, sworn in in March 2022 – is also Chair of the Judicial Council on Diversity and Inclusion (JCDI), the body that published the Recommended National Standards for Working with Interpreters in Courts and Tribunals (the RNS, second edition, released in 2022). In April this year, the Chief Justice gathered colleagues from the legal and T&I professions to give a presentation on working with interpreters in courts. AUSIT’s Vice President for Events and PD, Carl Gene Fordham, attended the seminar and reports on it here.
Her Honour pointed out that interpreters owe a paramount duty to the court …
The seminar, held in the Supreme Court of Queensland’s Banco Court, Brisbane, was well attended by legal professionals and interpreters, court staff and representatives from language service providers.
The Chief Justice was joined by Judge Alexander Horneman-Wren, Deputy Chief Magistrate Anthony Gett, Magistrate Dzenita Balic, Senior Registrar Mohamed Bensghir, Punjabi interpreter Sumeet Kaur and Mandarin interpreter Lynn Geng.
The RNS, which offers valuable guidance to judicial officers, legal practitioners and interpreters on collaborating effectively to uphold procedural fairness for individuals with limited English proficiency, was a focal point of the discussion. The guidelines for working with interpreters in courts published by Queensland Courts were also discussed in detail.
Chief Justice Bowskill – who last year wrote about the crucial role judicial officers play in improving procedural fairness for people from diverse backgrounds – opened the seminar by discussing the essential role interpreters play in ensuring that people with limited English proficiency can remain ‘linguistically present’ during legal proceedings. She affirmed the judiciary’s commitment to the RNS, and expressed a hope that the document would soon be enshrined in legislation.
Her Honour pointed out that an interpreter’s paramount duty is to the court, regardless of who has engaged them. She went on to explain that while public funding is available for interpreting services in criminal cases, and in domestic and family violence proceedings, parties requiring interpreter services in civil matters must engage them at their own expense.
Her Honour also underscored the importance of providing interpreters with background and contextual information prior to legal proceedings, to enable them to effectively discharge their duties as officers of the court.
Judge Horneman-Wren SC suggested that interpreters should take a proactive approach in addressing issues with judicial officers, as they are uniquely positioned to do so compared to other court users. His Honour stressed the importance of identifying the need for an interpreter early on in proceedings, explaining that even if a party has conversational English skills, this doesn’t necessarily mean they can comprehend complex legal proceedings or give evidence in English accurately.
His Honour suggested that judicial officers should simplify the wording they use for legal processes and procedures, in order to assist interpreters in their role. For example, instead of using technical terms like ‘arraign’ without explanation, he recommended that judicial officers provide context by saying something like, ‘I will now read the charges to the defendant and ask them whether they want to plead guilty or not guilty.’
He also advised legal practitioners to ask questions in a straightforward manner during cross-examination, avoiding unnecessary legal jargon and complexity, as keeping questions structurally simple helps avoid breakdowns in communication.
Deputy Chief Magistrate Gett reminded the audience that interpreters are essential professionals in the legal system, and acknowledged that his work would be significantly more challenging without their assistance.
His Honour noted that Magistrates Courts present unique challenges compared to higher level courts, as they are often bustling with activity, with long lists of cases and noisy environments, and highlighted the difficulty of locating interpreters in such hectic settings.
He also pointed out the taxing nature of telephone bookings – on both judicial officers and interpreters – and advised that when legal practitioners book interpreters, they need to account for the time needed to brief the interpreter and administer their oath, as well as for the interpreting itself.
Magistrate Dzenita Balic urged lawyers to use plain language when working with interpreters, and recommended they provide documents and files ahead of time, to allow interpreters to prepare adequately before assignments.
Senior Registrar Bensghir provided insights from the court registry into the interpreter booking process and the common challenges that often arise. He stressed that interpreters should be booked in advance and accurately, and discussed the bailiff’s role in explaining technology and other relevant information to interpreters.
Liying Geng, a NAATI-certified specialist legal and health interpreter, pointed out that some outdated views about interpreters still exist among legal practitioners and the judiciary, and that the ways some judges describe interpreters — for example, as ‘translation machines’ – are inaccurate and unhelpful. She explained that interpreters don’t translate word for word, rather they strive to produce interpretations that are optimal and complete.
Ms Geng also pointed out that the interpreter is not there for the non-English-speaking party only, but for all the participants in the legal process, including law enforcement, legal practitioners and judicial officers. At every stage, accurate interpreting is essential to ensure justice is properly administered.
She described the various modes and processes of interpreting, and shared some workplace health and safety issues experienced by interpreters. For example, if they are interpreting for a defendant and are not provided with a simultaneous interpreting headset, they have to interpret from inside or beside the dock, which can cause strain to their neck, voice and/or ears. Ms Geng urged that training on how to work with interpreters be made mandatory for all law students.
NAATI-certified interpreter Sumeet Kaur pointed out that some judicial officers misunderstand the interpreter’s role – for example, they may ask the interpreter to explain legal concepts to non-English-speaking users of the court – and emphasised the crucial need for clarity around role boundaries.
Ms Geng and Ms Kaur closed the seminar with a roleplay demonstrating some common problems that arise during interpreting assignments, including:
- how confusion can arise when an interpreter fails to interpret in the first person
- the importance of interpreters informing the court when seeking clarification from a non-English-speaking party
- how interpreters must accurately relate both content and manner of speech, particularly when interpreting evidence in court, to allow any hesitations, intonation, fillers and other ‘non-words’ to be interpreted into the evidence.
The event provided a unique opportunity for members of the Queensland courts’ judiciary and registry to share best practices for working with interpreters with their colleagues in the legal profession.
Carl Gene Fordham specialises in court interpreting (Mandarin–English) and forensic translation (Chinese>English). He also serves as AUSIT’s Vice President for Events & Professional Development, and teaches T&I part time at the University of Queensland.
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