Asylum Support Appeals Project (ASAP) – Written evidence (ITS0055)

Submission to the inquiry into Interpreting and Translation Services in the Courts

About ASAP

1. ASAP is a national charity established in 2004 in response to the lack of legal aid for representation in asylum support appeals.

2. We aim to reduce destitution of people in the asylum system throughout the UK by protecting their rights to food and shelter. We achieve this by:

a)    Providing pro-bono representation and advice to people who are appealing Home Office decisions to refuse or withdraw their asylum support at the Asylum Support (First-Tier) Tribunal (the AST).

b)   Delivering training, running a second-tier advice line and an online network for frontline organisations, advice agencies and legal practitioners working with people in the asylum system. 

c)    Engaging in policy, lobbying and litigation to address the systemic causes of destitution, improving policies and procedures on asylum support. 

ASAP’s experience of interpreting and translation services in the courts

3. Since January 2024 we have represented 181 appellants at the AST. All appellants are people seeking or refused asylum, the vast majority of which require interpreters in their hearings.

4. ASAP has been working in the AST since 2004 and therefore we have longstanding experience of the use of interpreters in courts and tribunals.

Response to enquiry

5. Our evidence is subject to two caveats:

1. It is difficult for our representatives to assess the quality of interpreters because, for obvious reasons, what the interpreters are saying is not normally understood by anyone other than the appellant. Equally, appellants may not know what good practice looks like, so do not often provide spontaneous feedback on court interpreting services. There is also a substantial power imbalance between appellants and the court system which means that appellants do not often feel emboldened to speak up when there is a problem. It is therefore only when things obviously go wrong, or once it is too late and the hearing is at an end, that we become aware that there were issues with interpreting during the hearing.

2. ASAP systematically collects feedback on our own interpreters but not the courts’. Therefore, without the time to conduct detailed research we cannot provide anything more than anecdotal evidence. 

6. When the courts transitioned to the current centralised interpreting contract, we witnessed significant issues with interpreters not turning up, core languages not being available and interpreters not appearing to be properly trained. For instance, in three months in 2017 six of our appeals had to be adjourned because the interpreter had not attended. However, these instances have become much less frequent. Most hearings take place without there being any reported problems with the interpreting services.

7. Access to court interpreters performs a crucial role in ensuring access to justice for appellants. In our experience, the AST take steps to try to ensure availability of interpreting services where required: administrative staff ensure that interpreters are available in every hearing, double-checking with appellants or their representatives whether one is not required when an appellant has failed to request one.

8. Likewise, judges always introduce the interpreter at the outset of the hearing. Their role is usually clearly explained to the appellants including a reminder that they are to interpret everything that is said and not have separate conversations. However, it is not always practical to ensure that discussions between judges and their representatives are translated verbatim, so sometimes these are summarised.

9. But our legal team has also reported a number of issues which they see at the AST in the process of their work representing appellants:

1. Despite the judge’s warning, interpreters not interpreting word for word and entering into dialogue with the appellant. If this happens, judges are quick to intervene. However, we are concerned that less obvious interventions by the interpreter sometimes occur without anyone picking up on it.

2. Interpreters usually appear to have a good understanding of their independent role. But on occasion, they engage in conversations with appellants before or after an appeal, outside of the hearing. In a recent case, the judge had to intervene to stop this.

3. Issues around the AST not being able to source the correct dialect for certain languages are still an occasional problem. Judges either have to:

1. Adjourn hearings (potentially leave an appellant destitute for a longer period)
2. Proceed in English even if their language skills are not sufficient for this (this is rare and done with the consent of the appellant)
3. Proceed with the interpreter in a different dialect (again this happens with the consent of the appellant, but we have found that it can lead to misunderstandings occurring which can take time to iron out)

10.                     There has also been an increase in the last year in use of remote interpreters, where the appeal proceeds with everyone in-person but the interpreter attending remotely. We understand this is related to reduced travel costs. Our legal team have reported occasional technological issues (such as poor audio) and background noises, related to the interpreter being at home or being outside (in a park for example).

11.                     We hope that this limited submission is of use to the enquiry. We felt given our unique and considerable expertise in working with interpreters in court settings that we should contribute what we could in the given time.

30 September 2024