Monthly Archives: May 2013

The post below is reposted from Linguist Lounge and shows that the MoJ’s interpreting contract is continuing not to work and that judges are now starting to get very angry indeed with Capita Translation & Interpreting’s excuses. The ‘explanation’ of an interpreter being booked for a certain time and not turning up until later, if at all (posts passim).

The information comes from a barrister identified as JF.

Case details:

Date: 28/05/13
Place: Norwich Crown Court
Interpreter: Not Known
Interpreter booked through the sole contractor
Case: R v Morkūnas T20127248
Noticed by: Defence Counsel

What happened:

The above case was listed at 9.30 for custody time limit (CTL) hearing. The interpreter should have been there for a conference at 9.00 but did not arrive until 10.30.

The case was called on twice but the court could not proceed as no interpreter was present. The defendant had to have a conference with the instructing solicitor in English. The solicitor, having had many hours in conference with the defendant, was able – just – to adapt to his limited vocabulary. Fortunately, for complex reasons, the outcome had no practical implications for him.

My comments:

This is the usual. The explanation given by Capita was that she, the interpreter, had been booked for 10.30. No member of the Norwich CC staff would have made a booking for 10.30 as it is established over many years that CTL hearings are at 9.30 and need to be preceded by a conference. The knock-on effect was that the trial in which I, Defence Counsel, was committed in an adjoining court, was delayed. Fortunately there was no practical loss as late disclosure aborted the trial. The learned Judge did not appear to believe the explanation of the interpreter being booked for 10.30 and said enquiries would be made.

Under the old system there were a number of excellent Lithuanian interpreters who lived within 40 minutes of the court, were familiar with its practises, and have never, in my experience, been late.

The above information I have supplied is true
*Barrister name and contact details withheld by RPSI Linguist Lounge*

The mainstream media are now (finally) beginning to pick up on the asset stripping and hatchet job on the British justice system being perpetrated by Chris Grayling, Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor.

Earlier this week, Fleet Street Fox of the Mirror posted a piece entitled ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ It’s a pretty comprehensive analysis of what Grayling et al. are planning and the likely implications of their plans.

Included amongst the comments on the post is the one below from ‘Anonymous’ who’s a civil servant working in the courts service. I’ve taken the liberty of tweaking the formatting and capitalising the start of sentences (which the original author failed to do). The quote itself is reproduced by kind permission of Fleet Street Fox.

I’d really like to put my name to this, but as I’m a serving civil servant working within the court service I’m banned from saying anything about my job online (yes really). For the last 5 years the way the courts have been run borders on the imbecilic. I work in a fines dept and have been moved so far away from my original office I now have to commute for 3 hours a day. I’m not management, just regular bottom of the rung, admin worker. They’ve spend obscene amounts on consultants and “LEAN agents” while the actual work that needs to be done piles up because there simply isn’t the staff to do it. I despair of what this government is doing to public services.

The general sense of despondency that emerges from the comment is almost tangible, whilst the amount spent on consultants and their ilk and the general mismanagement both go to reinforce a couple of findings about the Ministry of Justice that are already in the public domain: firstly that the MoJ is not an enjoyable place to work (posts passim); and secondly that the MoJ is not an “intelligent customer” in the words of the House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee (posts passim).