ACRI received the response below from Director of Courts Moshe Gal, following our intervention regarding the quality of court interpretation services.
December 2008
To: Attorney Michal Pinchuk
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel
Re: Your intervention regarding supervision of the court interpretation system
Dear Attorney Pinchuk,
I confirm receipt of your letter and thank you.
Interpretation services are provided to the courts by providers chosen through tenders issued by the Finance Ministry’s Accountant General for the provision of translation services to government offices.
As you note in your letter, the professional level of the court interpretation services are not satisfactory. As such, the Director of the Courts (Moshe Gal) has requested that the Finance Ministry’s Accountant General allow the Courts Administration to publish separate tenders for court translation services, which will fulfill the requirements demanded of this type of service. Enclosed (below) is the Director of Courts’ letter to the Accountant General.
If the Accountant General approves our request, we will consider your recommendations in the formulation of the unique tender published for the courts.
Sincerely,
Attorney Barak Lazer
Senior Assistant to the Director of Courts
10 December, 2008
To:
Mr. Shuki Oren
Accountant General
Ministry of Finance
Dear Mr. Oren,
Re: The Court Interpretation System
Enclosed is a letter from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel containing a complaint about the poor quality of the court interpretation services in the court system. The poor professional level of the system has been of concern to the legal system for many years and various studies have been conducted which have highlighted this problem (see for example Neri Sebanya-Gavriel, “Court Interpreting under the Auspices of the State of Israel: a Critical Examination of Professional Standards”, MA thesis, supervised by Dr. Ruth Morris, Bar-Ilan University, 2008).
As you know, the court interpretation services are provided today by the winning bidders on tenders issued by the Director of Purchases for government ministries. These tenders are not necessarily appropriate for the type of services a court interpretation system supplies.
It should be emphasized that, unlike the translation services required by government ministries, which consist mainly of the translation of forms and documents, oral interpretation during court proceedings is vital for realization the right to plea of those individuals brought before the court who are unfamiliar with the Hebrew language and wish to present their case to the judge. Unprofessional translation of their remarks could lead to serious distortions of justice. I would also like to point out that in addition to fluency in Hebrew and the translated language, court interpretation requires knowledge of legal terminology and court procedure. This is also true of the level of supervision required during provision of the service, unlike the customary supervisory mechanism in place in government ministries. These specific requirements are not demanded in the tenders issued by the Director of Purchases.
Under these circumstances, I would like to request your approval to publish an independent tender on behalf of the courts for a court interpretation service which will fulfill the specific requirements detailed above.
Sincerely,
Moshe Gal
Director of Courts
