IDAHO INAUGURATES
STATE CERTIFICATION

Mirta Vidal

In an unprecedented move, a joint committee of state and federal courts has been created in Idaho to deal with interpreter issues, according to Cameron Burke, Clerk of the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho. A February 23 news release announcing that six candidates have passed the exam administered by the Consortium for State Court Interpreter Certification proclaims that "now for the first time the Idaho Supreme Court and the United States District Court have certified court interpreters to facilitate translation and interpretation of court proceedings." Idaho is the twelfth state to join the consortium. The testing, obtained with a $30,000 appropriation by the Idaho Legislature, was preceded by training workshops, which more than 100 interpreters attended last year, according to the news release.

In a telephone interview, Mr. Burke confirmed that the U.S. District Court "will certainly use" the newly state-certified Spanish interpreters, since no one in Idaho has ever been able to pass the federal certification exam and it is "not cost-effective to fly people in" for proceedings involving Spanish-speaking litigants. Proceedings requiring interpretation in other languages have apparently merited the expense, since Mr. Burke cited the example of a trial for which Hmong interpreters were brought from out of state.

Asked about the difference between the federal exam and the consortium test, Mr. Burke explained that the exam designed by the University of Arizona's National Center for Interpretation Testing, Research and Policy--the only credential offered by the federal courts since the Court Interpreter Act requiring certification went into law two decades ago--is more rigorous and very hard to pass. The question, he added, is "Do we need that level of competency in most court proceedings?" Mr. Burke acknowledged that interpreted proceedings in the Idaho federal courts include trials, but insisted that the interpreters newly certified by the consortium's state exam are more than adequate for the task. "We've been using them for years and we've never had a problem," he asserted.

According to Mr. Burke, per diem interpreters who are not federally certified are paid $125 per day by the federal courts.