But the system suffers from a chronic lack of qualified interpreters, according to lawyers and other legal experts. Dale Minami, who has practiced law in San Francisco for the past 25 years, remembered the time early in his career when a judge asked him to interpret for a Chinese client of his. The judge was even mad at me that I couldn t do it. He said trained interpreters are necessary to make the court system accessible to people with limited English-language skills and ensure that they receive a fair deal. When interpreters are not available, people with limited English-language proficiency feel intimidated, are often misinformed, or denied important rights, he said.
Federal law requires the use of certified interpreters-but only in Spanish.
It s up to the states to provide such services in other languages. In California, court interpreters are available in Arabic, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese. Interpreters must pass a court-sanctioned test to be certified. California Supreme Court Justice Ming Chin said that to ensure fairness and equal access to the courts, language should not be a barrier. According to a report by the Commission on the Future of California Courts, in 2020, the nation s most populous state would be home to about 50 million people speaking more than 220 languages.