Translators: the unsung heroes of the courts

The Abu Dhabi judicial department provides interpreters for 18 languages to non-Arabic speaking defendants.

They are the unsung heroes of the nation’s courts, without whom in many cases justice simply could not be done.

Their role is far less visible than that of the judge, the lawyers or the court clerk, yet translators are no less essential to the smooth running of a judicial system in a country with such a multicultural population.

Abu Dhabi’s judicial department has 52 translators providing services in 18 languages, while Dubai courts have a further 17 translators speaking nine languages.

Each must undergo a judicial training programme before written and oral tests. Such rigorous training means they are always in demand.

“It is not easy to find a translator,” said Manhal Dawood, who translates English into Arabic. “All the translators here have university degrees and speak classical Arabic.”

The most common languages to be translated are Urdu, English, Indonesian, Malaysian, Tagalog, Swahili, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Hindi, Bengali, Farsi, Sinhalese, Mandarin, Pashto, Russian, French and Malayalam.

In cases where the court does not have an in-house translator, freelancers must be brought in before a trial can continue.

But some languages prove more challenging than others, and some, such as Korean, present their own unique obstacles.

“A defendant from North Korea will refuse to speak to an interpreter from the south and vice verse,” said Youbin Ma, a Mandarin translator.

He remembered one case in which the defendant and the interpreter would not talk to each other because “they were scared it would reach their governments that they dealt with each other”.

“We were not aware of this problem at the time because there were not many Korean expats, but now there is a need,” said Mr Dawood.

“Also, we were only recently able to find an interpreter for the language of Georgia, the province which was separated from Russia.”

Sometimes freelance interpreters can be found at embassies. This is often the case for languages such as Italian, Spanish, Vietnamese and Bantu (the language of Uganda), which are only rarely needed.

But the job does not merely involve translation. A familiar challenge faced by most translators includes explaining the legal traditions of the UAE to defendants who are not always aware they have committed a crime.

Some expatriates struggle to comprehend that they can be in trouble for offences that do not exist in their home countries.

This commonly occurs with crimes classed as “beautifying the sin”, which includes actions such as an exchange of love messages between unmarried couples or public displays of affection.

“In Chinese it is hard to explain to the defendant that there is a link between such actions and the law,” Mr Ma said.

“It is the same for Europeans, who do not understand there is a problem with sex out of wedlock, so they confess immediately because to them love is the secret of life. They also do not understand why consuming alcohol is a problem.

“So in these areas it is hard for the interpreter to explain the problem. They think there has been a mistranslation.”

Misunderstandings can also occur when lawyers or defendants believe the translator is not hearing them out, or is providing a short, one-word translation for what was in the original language a long submission.

“The problem is usually not the translator. He receives instructions from the judge to simplify or to answer with ‘yes’ or ‘no’,” said Mr Ma.

“The surrounding environment is the problem, he is not the one running the hearing.”

Regardless of all the challenges, no complaints have been filed so far over any of the department’s interpreters at the translation section.

Success, it seems, is the same in any language.