CALIFORNIA JUDICIAL COUNCIL BACKPEDALS
ON TEAM INTERPRETING
In April of this year, Mary Lou Aranguren, a member of the Bay Area Court Interpreters (BACI), asked for NAJIT’s support in their efforts to persuade the Court Interpreters Advisory Panel to the California Judicial Council to reaffirm its policies providing for team interpreting. Aranguren reported that BACI had sent letters to judges and coordinators in their area, along with information about team interpreting, highlighting the fact that the Judicial Council’s own advisory panel had added to its interpreter training manual language that recommends team interpreting. This information included a copy of the recent Proteus article on team interpreting by Mirta Vidal. In response, the Judicial Council sent a memo to every presiding judge and head administrator in California essentially disavowing the recommendation they made in their own manual, which is presented to interpreters at mandatory workshops.
At the Advisory Panel meeting held on April 19, BACI representatives made an oral presentation and introduced letters of support from NAJIT, the California Federation of Interpreters and NAJIT member Aleé Alger Robbins, who wrote the section on team interpreting in the manual. Observers report the discussion was contentious, with the panel showing little support for—or understanding of—the concept of team interpreting. Judge Lance Ito (chair of the panel) put the matter over to the panel’s next meeting on June 7, at which time proposals to “revise” the language in the manual were to be considered.
For reasons that remain unclear, the panel departed from the published agenda and moved the team interpreting issue from the afternoon to the morning session. As a result, NAJIT member Holly Mikkelson, scheduled to speak in support of BACI’s position, was not present for the discussion. She spoke in the afternoon, but without the benefit of having heard the panelists’ earlier remarks.
NAJIT’s Letter to Advisory Panel
April 15, 1997
The Honorable Lance Ito
and Members of the Court Interpreters Advisory Panel
Judicial Council of California
Administrative Office of the Courts
303 Second Street, South Tower
San Francisco, California 94107
Your Honor:
NAJIT has been advised that on April 19, 1997, representatives of the Bay Area Court Interpreters Association (BACI) will be addressing the advisory panel to the Judicial Council of California on the subject of the need for interpreters to work in teams during lengthy proceedings. I am writing in support of BACI’s position.
The second edition of the “Professional Ethics and the Role of the Court Interpreter” training manual, which is used in California’s mandatory court interpreter ethics workshops, accurately states the reasons why it is necessary to use multiple interpreters for protracted court proceedings. NAJIT recognizes as does every well-informed, responsible individual that the necessity of team interpreting is an unassailable, objective fact, not a matter of opinion. Unless multiple interpreters are used where appropriate, the interpreter’s performance deteriorates to such an extent that the very purpose of having an interpreter in the first place is defeated. We urge the Judicial Council to adopt a policy that will truly enable interpreters to fulfill their duty of providing equal access to court proceedings for linguistic minorities.
For your information, I enclose herewith the Winter 1997 issue of Proteus [containing a copy of Vidal’s article on team interpreting, which] cites new research that supports NAJIT’s and BACI’s position. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Yours truly,
David Mintz
Chair of the Board
© 1997 by NAJIT