It was a process more drawn out, and only marginally less painful, than trying to pass a 5kg block of the “devil’s dandruff”. Because of the transnational nature of the drug-trafficking trial of Sheryl Cwele, proceedings have been endlessly drawn out by the need for translation.
The trial of Cwele and her co-accused, Frank Nabolisa, began in the Pietermaritzburg High Court this week.
The state’s first witness, Charmaine Moss, chose to be examined in Afrikaans, meaning that the Afrikaans questions of prosecutor Ian Cooke had to be translated into English, isiZulu and Igbo (Nabolisa is a Nigerian national). Likewise the responses.
As some of the interpreters seemed ill-equipped for the job, there were constant corrections from the Bench.
Afrikaans translator Beverley Hegeni appeared flustered at times as she scrambled for English words such as “Germany” and asked for repetitions.
“It was really tough because this was my first high court case and it’s a high-profile one,” she said.
Unisa language professor Rosemary Moeketsi, who has done extensive research on court interpreters in South Africa, says interpreters play a crucial role in a country with 11 official languages, many foreign residents and a Constitution that allows people to be tried in their language of choice.
Moeketsi said court interpreting was not as easy as it seemed. “It’s done in public, spontaneously and under tremendous stress. You think as you go, there are no rehearsals.
“Most of it is good, but some of it is horrible and compromises justice, people’s freedom, even the justice department.”
According to its 2009/10 annual report, the justice department employs almost 2 000 interpreters and language practitioners, who attend courses at its Justice College.
But Moeketsi says the dearth of qualifications in the sector affects performance.
“The qualification needed for appointment is a senior certificate and good knowledge of the languages spoken in the region where the candidate is to be appointed,” she said.
This was obviously inadequate, and needed to be buttressed by “some knowledge of the theory behind interpreting”.
‘You can never find one when needed’
Unisa introduced a three-year degree in court interpretation, while other tertiary institutions like Wits University and the University of Port Elizabeth introduced two-year diploma courses, but they were all shut down for lack of student enrolment.
“Unisa is, however, in the process of introducing a short course that will focus only on interpreting skills,” Moeketsi said.
A whip-round of attorneys practising in Durban’s courts uncovered a range of often prosaic problems.
“You can never find one when needed,” said one. “There’s a pool of interpreters from which to draw, but they’re never around. You lose 10% of your court time locating one,” he said.
Another said some translations were not very good. “I’ve been told as much by other lawyers who speak indigenous languages and the witnesses themselves,” he said.
In July this year a Durban couple, Basheer Sayed and his wife, Somcharee Chuchumporn, a Thai national, applied to have their conviction of human trafficking set aside on the grounds that the Thai interpreter had not taken the prescribed oath and the evidence in Thai was unsworn.