Why Anonymous Threat Letter Runs Afoul of Professional Court Interpreters

Posted by Álvaro Degives-Más on February 17, 2010

The following statement was prepared by Álvaro Degives-Más, a certified court interpreter in Nevada, for the Nevada Interpreters and Translators Association (NITA) in full response to an anonymous letter sent publicly to the Director of the Administrative Office of the Courts of the Supreme Court of Nevada. This letter, a copy of which is accessible via a link at the bottom of this statement, contained threatening language by its unknown author, i.e. announcing non-compliance with continuing education requirements for renewal of the formal certification status, while seemingly intending to continue performing as a court interpreter. NITA profoundly regrets the form, style and substance of this letter, and is in total disagreement with the suggested “logic” of said letter.

Strategy without tactics is the longest road to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise preceding defeat.

- Sun Tzu, 5th C. BC

Court interpreters in the state of Nevada do an important and complex job. Their profession is all the more challenging because of a presently wanting normative framework to enforce the use, wherever reasonably possible, of properly credentialed professionals. Not unlike an architect, a doctor or an attorney effect the safety, health and liberty of the members of the public they serve, a court interpreter can have a similarly dramatic impact, serving effectively and efficiently as a transparent interface, by linking the law, its proceedings and the pertinent actors involved to those of limited English proficiency.

That missing element in the framework mentioned earlier creates a real hazard. When insufficiently qualified interpreters act in lieu of available well-qualified alternatives, the precarious thread from which a non-English proficient participant pends, struggling to understand a complex and formal proceeding conducted in a foreign language, is stretched even thinner; possibly so beyond the breaking point of trust. This doesn’t “merely” affect that particular non-native English speaker alone. Arguably, the integrity of the entire proceeding depends on the trustworthiness, professionalism and competence of the court interpreter in question.

However, quite fortunately Nevada court interpreters do not operate in a complete regulatory void.

The Supreme Court of Nevada itself is certainly seized of the importance of providing competent assistance to defendants with insufficient proficiency in the English language. To wit: in 2001, Nevada joined the currently 40 member states strong Consortium for Language Access in the Courts (previously the Consortium for State Court Interpreter Certification) after which the Court Interpreter Program of the Administrative Office of the Courts, assisted by an Advisory Committee presided by the Administrator of the Court, within a year or two implemented an ongoing program, in line with Consortium guidelines, to properly assess and certify the ability of candidates to work as court interpreters in the state of Nevada.

This program, now ably managed by Ms. Andrea Krlickova, ascertains that candidates who look forward to a career as a court interpreter are, indeed, proven trustworthy, professional and competent enough to earn the Certificate of Appointment that accompanies the official badge. Naturally, achieving this accreditation as a certified or registered court interpreter comes at the expense of great efforts, made on top of a necessarily already highly advanced language proficiency, and paired with painstakingly developed and finely honed interpreting skills, and a near-reflexive understanding of the Code of Professional Responsibility, to which adherence is required of any and all court interpreters working in the state of Nevada.

Not surprisingly, the percentage of first time candidates who present themselves successively for the written and oral examinations and complete these successfully is expressed in a very low, single digit. It is another token of the great difficulty in meeting and exceeding the very high standards set for properly qualified court interpreters. As they should be. And that is, coincidentally, also very much in line with results obtained by candidates in other Consortium member states; a comparable outcome, speaking to a joint resolve and a common end. At the moment of this writing, 101 interpreters have obtained formal accreditation in Nevada as either certified or registered court interpreters. To put it differently, the Court Interpreter Program not only appears to work, it seems to work quite well at that.

As indicated at the beginning, there is nonetheless a pending and pressing issue of enforcing the use of such properly qualified interpreters wherever available, or at least making a reasonable and credible effort to do so. Leaving aside a linguistic inclination to semantically analyze notions such as “available,” “reasonable” and “credible,” the resulting current stubborn reality is that some qualified court interpreters exist who are insufficiently employed in this state to provide for the basic needs of their family with their professional dedication, while non-qualified court interpreters do their work, some of whom are unable to pass the pertinent exams even on multiple attempts, and none of whom are bound by on aggregate costly continuing education requirements that are imposed – not only justifiably but correctly so – on properly certified and registered court interpreters, to maintain their formal status of accreditation.

This charitably termed “mismatch” has other, arguably much more ominous ramifications. Whenever a non-properly qualified interpreter is used deliberately in a court proceeding, while a certified (or where applicable, a registered) court interpreter is available, that choice is made also deliberately at the expense of the quality and solidity of the process as a whole. This is, after all, not a matter of available options among “several degrees of decent quality” where extra-professional factors like familiarity with the interpreter can in fact override the basic competence that is required of any court interpreter.

The problem, of course, oftentimes is that establishing such competence is quite hard. Yet that is precisely why the Court Interpreter Program exists in the first place: to take that burden out of the equation for courts, who already have plenty of weighty matters to consider. All the more, given that the lack of a uniform protocol mandating the audio recording of the performance of court interpreters – something viewed favorably by the Board of Directors of NITA – makes it impossible to test the validity of that choice between a certified and a non-certified interpreter. There is simply no record, either way, to establish competence; not at the time, and not after the fact.

There is, for another example, also no requirement for occasional “spot checks” on performance by qualified interpreters of those non-qualified interpreters, which seems all the more warranted when they perform their work on a more or less regular basis in formal court proceedings; nor is there a requirement that such non-accredited interpreters sign a document that contains the Code of Professional Responsibility and commits the signatory to its adherence at all times, so as to at least ascertain a minimum degree of deontological competence and comportment in agreement with a court interpreter.

The indicated absence of a clear record of performance, especially of non-accredited court interpreters, also partly explains, as we believe to a fair degree, why so very few cases are successfully appealed on account of inadequate language assistance in the original proceeding: unless perhaps counsel or the presiding judge just happens to be familiar with the languages involved, the accident that is the fruit of sheer interpreter incompetence goes by not only undetected, but virtually undetectable. Yet its unknown and unseen effect does impact decisions in court cases, to one degree or another. And the realization of that unknown effect is, we believe, a very scary idea.

All these considerations, along with others we could add here but chose not to in light of an already extensive text, speak to what we believe is an urgent necessity of reaching an agreement on a roadmap to introduce, sooner rather than later, a requirement of courts in Nevada to seek in applicable cases the use of properly credentialed interpreters wherever they are reasonably available, lest at the price of creating an enlarged opening for review on appeal of those cases in question; then, on account of presumed interpreter incompetence. This latter would be in our view a rather disastrous outcome, but also a fairly logical extension of the earlier manifest preference for a non-credentialed interpreter, when used without any reliable record of performance and in lieu of an available and well-qualified court interpreter.

These considerations explain a degree of frustration, existing among many certified court interpreters in Nevada; a frustration that stems essentially from the apparent professional contradiction of using non-certified interpreters in spite of available and properly credentialed alternatives.

However…

All the previous notwithstanding, no degree of frustration whatsoever may ever stand in the way of a formally credentialed court interpreter meeting his professional obligations of trustworthiness, professionalism and competence while discharging his duties. These obligations of a court interpreter are formally and clearly articulated in the publicly available text of the Code of Professional Responsibility for court interpreters in the state of Nevada.

And this leads us, after this lengthy preceding contextual clarification, to the final object of this formal statement: an egregious example of conduct that we consider is not only unbecoming, but in our firm opinion is even totally unacceptable of a court interpreter, whether certified, registered or not qualified at all.

During the recent public meeting of the Advisory Committee for the Court Interpreter Program, held via video teleconference simultaneously in Las Vegas and Carson City on Friday, February 5th 2010, one of the topics concerned an anonymous letter (a copy of which was obtained by the Board of Directors of NITA, and is attached to this statement as a PDF file via a link shown at the bottom of this statement) dated November 20th of the previous year, addressed to the Director and State Court Administrator of the Supreme Court of Nevada, Mr. Ronald R Titus; that same letter was apparently also released into the public domain via distribution to various public media outlets and public officials.

The anonymous letter refers to employment of non-accredited interpreters by courts in Las Vegas. It unabashedly sets the tone for its message with this opening run-on sentence: “This letter hereby [sic] reflects a very concerning [sic] matter the Court Interpreter’s Office in Las Vegas, nor [sic] the Court Administration at the RJC can [sic] fully understand the nature of the problem that impacts and faces [sic] all of us who are Certified Court Interpreters and who are in compliance with the AOC [sic].”

Far beyond merely informing the Director of the Administrative Office of the Courts of the perceived irregularity (of which it curiously states: “It is in violation of statues [sic]“) the two-page long text of this letter offers the following statement of intent: “We, the official [sic] Court Certified Interpreters, Officers of the Courts [sic] will stop complying with the required [sic] mandate from AOC in accumulating educational [sic] credits in order to [sic] keep the Certification active [sic] and in full force and effect [sic] as per [sic] AOC requirements.”

The letter also offers something presumably in the way of legal authority for its position, by way of reference to and mention of NRS 1.510, NRS 1.520 and NRS 1.540 in support of its denunciation of “the problem.” Sadly, the letter does not clarify whether the alleged instances of employment of non-certified court interpreters entail a claim of certification by non-certified court interpreters (which is specified as unlawful by NRS 1.540), or if such employment takes place in spite of an existing bias or a conflict of interests of the court interpreter (NRS 1.510). The reference to NRS 1.520 seems misplaced altogether, as that letter provides no further clarification of applicable, specific and additional regulations adopted by the Court Administrator that may have been violated.

It is a pity that the author(s) of that text did not pay closer attention to the text of provisions between NRS 1.520 and NRS 1.540, as NRS 1.530 clearly prescribes the membership of the Advisory Committee, charged with advising the Court Administrator on matters related to certification of court interpreters. Among other things, that is why the anonymous letter was submitted for consideration by the Advisory Committee. A cursory reading of NRS 1.530 reveals a significant representation in the committee of members of the judiciary and court administrators. If only for that reason, it is somewhat incomprehensible how the sender(s) of that letter seemingly envisaged sending the State Court Administrator an anonymous threat letter – which predictably landed also on the Committee’s desk – and expect some reasonable understanding, to the point of granting lenience to the announced non-compliance with the very same regulations enforced by the Administrator.

More distressing is that, apparently, some court interpreters are confused about the nature, extent and intent of the regulations currently in place for court interpreters, more specifically: for certified court interpreters. The “mismatch” to which we alluded at the beginning precisely deals with a lack of enforcement of the use of available, properly qualified court interpreters, be they registered or certified. Put differently: NRS does not mandate the use of certified court interpreters. Instead, it regulates the conditions which court interpreters must meet to obtain and maintain their certified status. And that letter, while ignoring the former, goes on to state an intent to ignore the latter as well.

If only of that reason, the Board of Directors of the Nevada Interpreters and Translators Association strongly rejects such intent of ignoring the regulations applicable to maintaining certification as a court interpreter. It is a form of contorted “logic” which, in more common terms, cuts off the nose of certified court interpreters just to spite their face. Instead, NITA makes a public call on all certified court interpreters in the state of Nevada to support the State Court Administrator and his Advisory Committee, who work diligently and incessantly to address and resolve that mismatch: the core of what that letter considers “the problem.”

Let’s not forget that, since the inception of the Court Interpreter Program, a lot has been accomplished already: while certainly not terming the present situation as perfect, for example due to the mentioned lack of enforcement of the use of reasonably available qualified court interpreters, there is no case to be made for accusations of lackluster engagement of existing problems. Much less so, to speak in grossly inappropriate terms such as “No one in The Administration [sic] seems to care” when addressing the State Court Administrator and his Advisory Committee, with the essential complaint that they themselves already engage. They do care; there simply is only so much one can do within the given means, context and time frame. Perhaps, taking a greater interest in what the Advisory Committee actually does will lead to a better understanding of the challenges before court interpreters in our state.

In that regard, NITA believes it is indeed far more motivating, positive and above all productive to adopt a constructive attitude, supporting and standing by the Advisory Committee in its efforts on the path to a future statewide mandate to use, wherever reasonably possible, the services of certified court interpreters. To that end, attending their public meetings held approximately every trimester is a helpful first step to a better, greater and common understanding.

Finally, some stern but necessary remarks on the style and form in which that anonymous letter was presented: it bears more likeness with a rambling, clipped together ransom note sent anonymously to the intended “victim” than a request to redress real and reasonable grievances. Numerous and occasionally toe curling flaws in basic English grammar, aside from logical fallacies and assorted misdemeanors in style displayed in that letter, instill a certain concern over the ability of the letter’s author to adequately translate, let alone interpret in the higher register that is a required skill of a court interpreter. Yet that same letter purports to speak in the name of language professionals. For that reason alone, we sincerely hope that the author will reflect on the letter; it is not commensurate and less so compatible with the skills, abilities and behavior that is both required and expected of a certified court interpreter. In fact, were the identity of that author known, de-certification could be considered based on contravention of several canons of the Code of Professional Responsibility.

We believe that that letter is, in short, an affront to professional, certified court interpreters, and strongly condemn it. We call on its anonymous author(s) to reflect profoundly on the implications of standing by it, and if that letter indeed is an accurate expression of sincere beliefs, to resign as a court interpreter altogether, leaving those delicate, complicated and challenging tasks to dedicated, serious and more professionally focused experts. The anonymous letter exudes a lack of trustworthiness, professionalism and competence.

In closing, we hope that the Advisory Committee summarily dismisses said anonymous screed, at best taking note of an expression of concern over the need for additional regulation as well as continuing education, and therefore considering it an actual expression of support for the Committee’s endeavor, and that the regulations are rigorously enforced indeed: by de-certifying any court interpreter not in compliance with the applicable continuing education requirements for renewal of certification of court interpreters. Meanwhile, NITA offers its encouragement and support – to which end NITA works hard to expand our current offering in professional development opportunities – to all who are truly serious about this tasking but rewarding profession. Just as, in general terms, NITA is committed to working with any and all parties and stakeholders relevant to our core mission: “to advance and to elevate the quality and availability of language services throughout the State of Nevada.”

All in all, we believe that such is what best serves the interest of We, the People.

Reno, Nevada, on the 17th of February, 2010

Related posts:

1. Formal Statement by the NITA Board of Directors: Strongly Disagrees With Anonymous Letter Sent to the Administrator of the Courts of Nevada
2. Public Meeting: Nevada Certified Court Interpreters Advisory Committee (February 2010)
3. NV Court Interpreters Skill-Building Workshop, Written Exam Retake for 2010
4. Oral Proficiency Interviews for Nevada Registered Court Interpreters
5. 2011 Orientation Workshop, Written Exam for Nevada Certified/Registered Court Interpreters