Japan’s Courts Turning Into Tower of Babel

Keawprapa Supaporn couldn’t understand her court-appointed interpreter’s broken Thai and had to guess at what the judge was saying. So she asked the court to provide a new interpreter.

Her request was denied. She was convicted of murdering her pimp and sentenced to eight years in prison. Case closed.

After drawing a flood of foreigners during its boom years, Japan is facing a soaring caseload of crimes committed by them. Its courtrooms have turned into a Tower of Babel, creating a nightmare for officials and an increasing number of defendants unable to understand what is going on.

“The human rights of foreign defendants just aren’t taken into consideration,” said Supaporn’s lawyer, Noriko Ishida. “If we had a better interpreter, I would think my client could have received a more lenient sentence.”

According to statistics compiled by Japan’s Supreme Court, 7,251 trials required interpreters in 1997, nearly 15 times the 488 cases a decade earlier. The defendants spoke 28 languages; most required translation for Chinese, Persian, Tagalog, Korean or Thai. These new demands are more than the system can meet. As of April last year, the list of registered court interpreters throughout Japan totaled only 2,182.

Yoshimitsu Gohda, of the Supreme Court’s Criminal Affairs Bureau, said the lack of court interpreters nationwide is so severe that skills are seen as a secondary issue.

“We can’t afford to be choosy,” he said.

Interpreters and human rights activists say the real problem is the government’s failure to seek out qualified professionals and then provide training and pay to make the work worthwhile.

“In Japan, it is still often considered enough just to have an interpreter sit in a courtroom,” whether they are qualified or not, said Keiko Kawashima, a Persian interpreter for district courts in Tokyo and nearby cities.

Kawashima said she earns about 45,000 yen ($400) as the combined fee for an hour’s prison visit with a defense attorney and an hourlong court hearing.

Paid by the court, the fees are comparable to other freelance interpretation in Japan. But interpreters do not get paid until a case is closed, and that can take years.

Court interpreters in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan’s two biggest cities, recently began organizing seminars and workshops to bring up professional standards.

They have also taken their case to the media to put the problem into the national spotlight.

Many interpreters want a national accreditation system that would give them wider recognition. They note that the government conducts tough national exams for sightseeing interpreters, but none for court interpreters.

Anyone who claims to be capable of “daily conversation” can get on the court list after an interview with a judge, said Gohda at the Supreme Court. Most have no legal background. “There always is a danger of mistranslation,” he said.

But Gohda said that he knows of no reversals or mistrials caused by poor translations and that efforts to improve are being made.

Local courts have begun seminars for registered interpreters. And judges, lawyers and prosecutors now provide documents to interpreters before court sessions so they can prepare.

Quality interpretation, however, is not necessarily a major concern in the legal community. A spokeswoman for the Japan Federation of Bar Assns., Masayo Takeuchi, said problems associated with courtroom interpreters have been discussed but added that “the issue is not a top priority.”

While courtroom interpretation is called for by law, everything a defendant says must be translated for the judge, but remarks made by the judge or other court officials need not be translated to the defendant.

With judges and trial lawyers typically overloaded with cases, many aren’t able to devote a great deal of time to such issues as the quality of interpretation.

Some interpreters say that is unfair. “I think it would be best if we could sit next to the defendant and interpret everything,” Kawashima said.