Has the MoJ given their staff an instruction to hush up ALS failures?
A colleague reported from Stratford Magistrates Court today, 10th April. The trial finally happened after at least two previous adjournments due to the lack of an ALS interpreter. My colleague interpreted for the victim who was giving evidence while the ALS interpreter was supposed to interpret everything to the defendant in the dock.
To my colleague's astonishment, the ALS interpreter was sitting there in silence most of the time and would only occasionally whisper something briefly to the defendant. When my colleague tried to draw the usher's attention to the fact that the defendant's interpreter was not really interpreting, the usher did not seem interested and just said, 'Yes, we know'. No one else in the courtroom seemed to be bothered.
Has the MoJ given their staff an instruction to hush up ALS failures or do court staff feel so helpless that they turn a blind eye to such striking incompetence of ALS linguists and the agency which sends them?
