Vol. VII, No. 4 - Fall 1998

Current Developments in
Court Interpreter Training in South Africa

ourt interpreters in South Africa play a crucial, everyday role in the judicial system. For obvious historical reasons, the only two official languages in the country for many years were English and Afrikaans. These two languages were therefore also the official languages of the courts. As the majority of the South African population has neither English nor Afrikaans as a first language, court interpreters were, and still are, needed in all courts on an almost continuous basis. Previously, the provision of court interpreters for all of the other languages of South Africa (another nine have been adopted as official languages) was seen as an unfortunate necessity. Since 1994 linguistic rights have been enshrined in the constitution and not only are court interpreters a necessity, but it is now recognised that their provision is a vital means of ensuring the linguistic and legal rights of the whole population.

Because almost all cases involve a court interpreter, the South African Department of Justice employs full-time interpreters to serve in the courts. These interpreters are therefore public service employees. Interpreters are normally assigned to a particular court, often with the same magistrate or judge presiding. Without their presence, the majority of courts cannot function. Today however there are cases where all those in the courtroom, including the lawyers and the judges, are speakers of a language other than English or Afrikaans, for example, Zulu. Because the language of record has to be uniform, interpreters still find themselves interpreting to no real purpose. This is a complex issue, currently being negotiated by the Department of Justice. One solution would be to record proceedings in Zulu and then have them translated into English, although this could lead to obvious legal problems and has so far meant that interpreting in such a case has continued, however cumbersome and time-consuming.

The particular historical and social background peculiar to South Africa has also meant that court interpreters do not only serve as interpreters but often also as mediators between the accused, the witnesses and those in a position of authority in the courts. This may involve simple things such as thanking witnesses and asking them to step down, or explaining court procedure. Court interpreters themselves freely admit their role of advocacy in the courtroom and consider this an important part of their work, however controversial it may be.

Interpreters receive minimum training, and may be called upon to work in languages beyond their competence.

Because court interpreters were often seen in the past as an unfortunate and undesirable necessity, their status has been extremely low. Interpreters are recruited by the State, occasionally straight from school, the only prerequisites being a Senior Certificate (which requires twelve years of schooling) and the ability to speak more than one language— not difficult in a country where the vast majority of people are bilingual and more often multilingual.

They are not well paid, and have had very little chance of advancement other than by studying law part-time with the aim of becoming Public Prosecutors —something that was out of the reach of many. At the same time, of course, the very people they were meant to serve have often been given a very poor service. Interpreters receive minimum training by the Department of Justice via Justice College, usually mainly in court structures and procedures, and are frequently called upon, especially in urban centres such as Johannesburg, to switch between a number of languages in the same courtroom without necessarily being truly competent in those languages. There are several reasons for this potentially unethical practice. Many interpreters do indeed speak three or four or even more languages— it is not unusual for interpreters to claim that they work with all eleven. However, some may have only a limited understanding of the less common languages, leading to inevitable instances of faulty interpreting. Another reason is financial—it is clearly more expensive to have several specialist interpreters working in one court than simply to assign an interpreter to a particular court and assume that he will cope with whatever comes his way. As the backlog in South African courts is a very real problem, and the number of interpreters is limited, it is easy to understand why such situations arise. There are many instances when such a situation may well have resulted in a serious miscarriage of justice.

It was with the aim of improving both the lot of the court interpreter and that of those dependent on the court interpreter that an initiative finally got underway at the beginning of 1997. The intention of this initiative was to train court interpreters and give them the opportunity to obtain a professional qualification, to raise the status of their profession, the quality of service they were able to offer, and to educate those who need the services of court interpreters, especially the lawyers, magistrates and judges. The Department of Justice, Justice College, the two court interpreter unions, and various academic institutions took part in discussions and eventually formed a committee to develop a nationally recognised course which court interpreters could follow while remaining in the employ of the Department of Justice. Students were to be funded by the latter in the form of bursaries.

This came to fruition towards the end of 1997 when four universities undertook to launch a University Diploma in Legal Translation and Interpreting aimed specifically at practising court interpreters. In order to make the course more accessible to those from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds, this course was not initiated as a degree, meaning that entry to the course was a great deal more flexible than it would otherwise have been—as mentioned above, court interpreters normally have a Senior Certificate, which does not necessarily qualify them for university admission to a degree. At the beginning of 1998 (the academic year in South Africa runs from February to November) over 200 court interpreters registered for this diploma countrywide. All the courses follow a similar core curriculum consisting of Interpreting and Translation, Interpreting Practice, Introduction to Law, and Language Enhancement. The language requirements are that each interpreter take a course in English plus two other languages of their choice; these normally include their first language and any other language which they habitually use in court. For historical reasons the third choice of language is predominantly Afrikaans, in which many of the court interpreters are more competent than they are in English. The different institutions have organised their courses rather differently to cater for students in full-time employment. One conducts the course entirely on a distance-learning basis, others hold lectures and classes in the evenings and weekends, and my own university brings the students together on campus for a week at a time, four times during the year, with assignments to be completed between sessions.The contact between students and lecturers has proved especially fruitful and beneficial for both.

This came to fruition towards the end of 1997 when four universities undertook to launch a University Diploma in Legal Translation and Interpreting aimed specifically at practising court interpreters. In order to make the course more accessible to those from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds, this course was not initiated as a degree, meaning that entry to the course was a great deal more flexible than it would otherwise have been—as mentioned above, court interpreters normally have a Senior Certificate, which does not necessarily qualify them for university admission to a degree. At the beginning of 1998 (the academic year in South Africa runs from February to November) over 200 court interpreters registered for this diploma countrywide. All the courses follow a similar core curriculum consisting of Interpreting and Translation, Interpreting Practice, Introduction to Law, and Language Enhancement. The language requirements are that each interpreter take a course in English plus two other languages of their choice; these normally include their first language and any other language which they habitually use in court. For historical reasons the third choice of language is predominantly Afrikaans, in which many of the court interpreters are more competent than they are in English. The different institutions have organised their courses rather differently to cater for students in full-time employment. One conducts the course entirely on a distance-learning basis, others hold lectures and classes in the evenings and weekends, and my own university brings the students together on campus for a week at a time, four times during the year, with assignments to be completed between sessions.The contact between students and lecturers has proved especially fruitful and beneficial for both.

This year—and we have two more intensive weeks to go—has proved educational both for ourselves and, I believe, for the majority of students, many of whom have worked as interpreters in the courts for ten or twenty years, and have never before had the opportunity to study further. It is envisaged that this qualification will eventually become the standard for employment as a court interpreter and that many of the more able students will go on to further their education with a degree. The credits that they obtain during the three years of the diploma will count towards exemption from certain first-year courses.

This initiative is still in its early days, and it will only be towards the end of 2000 that the first students will obtain their diplomas. By that stage we hope to have conducted a series of studies to establish to what extent their performance has improved. There will obviously be some failures, but also some outstanding successes. We sincerely hope that the initial intentions behind the establishment of this course will be achieved.The ultimate aim is to benefit both the client and the interpreter and to ensure that justice is served more consistently than before.

Dr. Judith Inggs teaches at the Graduate School for Translators and Interpreters, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.