Legal interpreting and translation in asylum/immigration proceedings in Italy

Flavia Caciagli Conigliaro, legal/technical translator for the Universities of Florence, Catania and Palermo, Court Interpreter, president of the Sicilian section of AITI (Italian Association of Translators and Interpreters)

The southern Sicilian coasts of Italy are, in certain way, the first European frontier as far as illegal immigration is concerned. The evergrowing flow from central and northern Africa, is posing very complex language challenges, and the supplying of qualified interpreters has become a real problem both for the asylum and illegal immigration proceedings as well as for the judiciary. The present paper shows how asylum and immigration proceedings work in Italy and the interpreting services supplied for each proceeding, especially in Sicily. Through the analysis of some cases, which are some of the problems faced and which have been the solutions implemented while at the same time portraying the professional status of qualified interpreters in the country.

Linguistic minorities on trial: Reflections on interpreting multilingual identities in legal settings

Katrijn Maryns, University of Ghent, Lessius University College

In our ever more globalized society, increased minority participation amounts to higher visibility of linguistic inequalities in legal-bureaucratic settings. Arguably, it is the legal system itself—the dominance of one language that is institutionally formalized—which structurally disadvantages linguistic minority participants, for this ultimate orientation towards the institutionalized standard forces them to make choices that, in any case, keep them from using the full range of their communicative potential. Linguistic minority speakers in legal settings are encouraged to express themselves in their ‘native’ language through an interpreter. Unquestioned reliance on interpreter-mediated interaction as the most effective and efficient answer to perceived multilingual complexities, however, overlooks some important issues: first, the fact that consistent monolingual usage cannot be taken for granted in translocal spaces of communication and second, the fact that interpreted and translated discourse, just like any other form of discourse representation, inevitably testifies to the conditions under which it is produced. In order to substantiate these arguments, I analyse two instances of interpreter-mediated interaction in two strikingly different contexts of legal decision-making in Belgium. The first is the case of an African asylum seeker who had to motivate his claim at the asylum agencies in Brussels. The second is a murder case that involved immigrant litigants and came before the Assize Court in Antwerp. These two procedures, though inherently different from a juridical perspective, actually display some striking similarities when it comes to the evaluation of multilingual performances and identities. Not only do they equally impose a monolingual ideology on the multilingual performances encountered in the legal space, they also equally underestimate the filtering effects of interpreting and translation on the discursive production of evidence. The data demonstrate how the displacement of the linguistic minorities in both cases constrains the functionality of their communicative resources. I subsequently argue that equal treatment of linguistic minorities in the legal process would require a revaluation of their entire set of linguistic resources needed to actively participate in the proceedings.

Une justice de qualité exige une traduction de qualité

Elhassane Benhaddou Handi, traducteur et interprète à l’Office d’Asile et de Refuge (Madrid), professeur collaborateur (Université de Alcala de Henares, la Laguna de Tenerife, la Nebrija, l’Université de San Vicente de Alicante)

La communication entre les personnes qui ne partagent pas la même langue ou culture a toujours été un défi difficile de surmonter sans l’intervention des interprètes et des traducteurs.

Dans le cadre de la protection internationale –l’asile et le refuge-celui de l’ordonnance juridique espagnole depuis les divers points et perspectives, autant du point de vue de l’Administration , de l’ordre des avocats, des tribunaux ou des Organismes internationaux qui sont impliqués dans le processus, il faut tenir en compte le travail déterminant des traducteurs et des interprètes qui agissent comme moyen de communication quand l’étranger ne parle pas la langue du pays d’arrivée.

Le sujet de l’exposé se centre sur les points suivants:

• Panoramique actuelle du recrutement mixte d’interprètes dans les Services Publics en Espagne (personnel de l’administration et employés d’une entreprise privée).
• L’Asile en Espagne, les différentes formes d’entretiens avec le réfugié et la typologie des documents à traduire.
• Difficultés auxquelles les traducteurs et les interprètes doivent faire face dans l’interaction avec les autres agents qui interviennent au cour du processus.