Back to Dickensian times with ALS?
“Give up all your hope, you who enter here”...That was my feeling today in the busiest Court in London that has been turned into a Dickensian Bleak House by the big joke called Als interpreting services.
Still shocked by the unexpected chance I had today to observe a Romanian Als linguist in action.
More details will revealed for your information soon.
Still unable to find the proper words to describe the mixture of feelings and thoughts about the chaos Als has brought into our Courts and the terrible state the legal system seems to have already fallen into.
In the dock I have seen three scared faces: two co-defendants, who had been waiting for a sentence and for an interpreter for two days, and the terrified and puzzled face of an utterly incompetent and useless unqualified Als linguist who only made a mockery of a system I had so much faith in and the profession we all put our souls into all these years.
A so-called linguist posing as an interpreter whom I had to watch almost in pain, struggling to understand what was going on around and barely utter one or two words every 5 minutes.
The sadness I felt yesterday and two days ago when I said a final good-bye to people I might never see or work with again and to the profession I loved doing has just been replaced by disappointment and disgust towards the big joke and mess the legal system has been turned into.
I do not think things will be able to stay this way for long. Now I am feeling stronger to face this challenge and if need be eventually turn my back to this profession within a system that does not value quality but welcomes gross incompetence.
Stay strong, dear colleagues, and do not lose hope. We will have to wait and see what and whom they value more.
Congratulations to you all who are fighting this and warm thoughts to all those special and brave Polish colleagues who stood united at the busiest Court in London today with me (actually now I realise it was yesterday as it is past midnight now). I felt privileged to be with you and I feel proud to know you.
Thank you to my Romanian colleagues who are fighting this together every day, in Courts and everywhere.
Thank you all.
