Why did the interpreters of the Roger Español case trial not know how to translate Catalan?

BarcelonaOne of the headlines that this Thursday's Roger Español case trial left behind has to do with the interpreters who were in the courtroom, unable to translate the lawyers' questions from Catalan to Spanish. The lawyers for the private and popular prosecutions, exercised by Irídia, Òmnium and the ANC, ended up self-translating or questioning the police directly in Spanish after up to two interpreters could not do their job, a fact that the entities have denounced as a "violation of linguistic rights". But how could this situation have happened?

According to the website of the Department of Justice of the Generalitat, translations and interpretations in the judicial bodies and Public Prosecutor's Offices of Catalonia are provided by the department, either through its own staff or, as is the case in most instances, through various contracted companies to which the service is outsourced. In the case of the trial of Roger Español, it is precisely one such company that provided the two women who unsuccessfully attempted to translate the questions to the Spanish police officers accused of blinding the pro-independence activist in one eye.

Government sources explain that a formal request has already been made to the company in question to "clarify immediately the failures that have occurred in the translation service" and to ensure that the service "complies with the contracted conditions." This request could lead to a sanction or, in the event of repeated failure of the service, to a termination of the contract. "The Government is working intensely to promote the use of Catalan also in the judicial sphere and defends the linguistic rights of all citizens," the same sources add.

In a joint statement this Friday, Irídia, Òmnium, and the ANC, together with the entities driving the #JustíciaPerRoger campaign, have described the "violation of linguistic rights" occurring at the trial as "intolerable." "The lawyers have been forced to self-translate into Spanish, to the point of not being able to ask questions in Catalan to some of the witnesses because the person in charge of the translation was unable to perform the task with competence," they lament, and point out that this violates the charter of linguistic rights of citizens before the justice system and the organic law of the judiciary.

A problem that goes back a long way

The problem with judicial interpretation has been in the news for years due to serious errors. The MIRAS group at the UAB has documented errors in English, French, Romanian, Arabic, and Chinese, among others. This study confirms that half of what is said in a trial with an interpreter is not translated for the defendant. The interpretation problem, therefore, "is not because it is in Catalan," but rather several reasons add up: "Often the person is not a sworn interpreter and does not have specific training, because translation and interpretation are two very different things in practice," explains translator and sworn interpreter Emma Soler, a member of the International Association of Conference Interpreters, to ARA.

And this happens due to a fundamental problem, which is how this service is tendered. "The specifications are not an exercise in transparency and quality assurance, but often auctions to the bottom: the winner is whoever presents the lowest price, without requiring or adequately accrediting the training and experience of the interpreters, who also do so in very precarious conditions (economic, preparation, et cetera)," adds Soler. The sector has denounced this situation for practically 20 years, and it has even reached the Ombudsman. "The consequences in a trial can be very serious: information that is not conveyed correctly, affecting the right of defense and the guarantees of the process," warns the interpreter.

Lack of "transparency" of the view

Beyond the linguistic issue, the entities acting as prosecutors in the Español case also criticize the "lack of transparency" and "opacity" of a trial that—they highlight—calls upon the thousands of citizens who suffered police violence on October 1st. In this sense, they point out the "obstacles" suffered by companions and people interested in physically attending the trial as members of the public, "capacity limitations," and the "impossibility" for citizens and journalists to be able to follow the trial remotely, since the streaming service was not available during the trial this Thursday afternoon. Consulted by this newspaper, the Department of Justice has declined to comment on these issues.