An
Ethiopian man who appealed against his conviction for a Wellington rape,
claiming the quality of interpreting provided during his trial was inadequate,
has failed to have the conviction overturned.
Chala Sani
Abdula, 29, was unsuccessful in both the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.
But in its
ruling, released today, the Supreme Court said Abdula's appeal raised an issue
that was central to fairness in the administration of criminal justice.
It
concerned the right of accused people who did not speak English to hear and
understand the case being presented against them.
Defendants
were dependant on effective interpretation of what was said in court if they
were to understand proceedings and have a real opportunity to present a full
defence to the criminal charges they faced, the judgement reads.
Abdula was
tried jointly with another man on a charge of raping a teenage student in the
back streets of Wellington's main nightclub and bar area in April 2007.
He was
found guilty and jailed for seven years, while his co-accused got four years
behind bars for unlawful sexual connection and being a party to rape.
During
their 2009 trial the pair shared an interpreter who sat between them in the
dock translating between English and Oromo, one of the official languages in
Ethiopia.
With no
Oromo language interpreters in New Zealand, one of only two on the database of
the relevant Australian government agency was brought to New Zealand but was
able to stay for just the first week.
The next
week the only other interpreter available - a Wellington taxi driver - took
over.
One of the
grounds of Abdula's appeal was that the quality of interpretation during the
first week of his trial was poor and did not meet the standard required under
the Bill of Rights Act.
Through
his lawyer, Donald Stevens QC, he also complained of problems arising from the
interpreter's soft voice and the lapse from time to time into simultaneous
interpretation as evidence was given.
The
Supreme Court accepted that there were some occasional difficulties during the
trial but said the judge had regularly taken the initiative "in a number
of ways" to ensure the process was working.
Neither
the accused nor his counsel had raised any objections to the quality of
interpretation during the trial.
For those
reasons, the appeal against conviction was dismissed.
However,
the Supreme Court recognised that the trial "did not at times reflect best
practice".
In future
cases, the judgment said, interpretation should not become simultaneous with
the giving of evidence. This would give accused time to react appropriately and
would avoid the risk of the interpreter missing passages of evidence.
The
interpreter should also speak in a voice loud enough for all in the courtroom
to hear, plus an audio recording should be made of all criminal trials in which
interpretation was required.
While the
standard of interpreters in court proceedings was high, "it is not one of
perfection", the Supreme Court said.
It was
clearly desirable that programmes for training court interpreters should be
further developed, but it was not the case that only those holding particular
qualifications should be recognised as competent to interpret trials.
Interpreting
New Zealand trains speakers of English and one or more languages as
interpreters for Government organisations, including the Justice Department.
No comments:
Post a Comment