LANGUAGE BARRIERS IN PORTUGUESE COURTS. CLUES FOR A DIAGNOSIS

Abstract

It is commonly acknowledged that a fair trial requires that those who do not speak or understand the language of the court should be assisted by an interpreter and have access to a translation of key case documents into a language that they understand. The right to be assisted by an interpreter in criminal proceedings has a long tradition in international human rights’ law and was further strengthened in the European Union with Directive 2010/64/EU of 20.10.2010. The right is also explicitly recognised by Portuguese law, in the Codes of Criminal and Civil Procedure and in the Asylum and Immigration Acts. However, similarly to what has been reported for other countries, the provision of language assistance in Portuguese courts leaves much to be desired, with obstacles ranging from scarcity of qualified interpreters to the lack of sensitivity on the part of judicial actors to the specificities of working with interpreters and to the impact that language barriers can have on access to justice by those who do not understand Portuguese. This paper gives an assessment of the state of play, based on an analysis of the relevant international and domestic legal frameworks, of judgments where Portuguese courts ruled on the (ir)relevance of the lack or insufficient assistance by interpreter and of the outcomes of focus groups and individual interviews conducted with stakeholders on the challenges of working in multilingual settings and the performance of Portuguese courts.