Legal interpreting in the EU : interdisciplinary research and dissemination

It is a self-evident fact that the 2010/64/EU Directive on the right to translation and interpretation in criminal proceedings is a means of guaranteeing equality under law. Since Tampere has been one of the starting points for the EU (Tampere summit 1998)to establish in all EU Member States guarantees and mechanisms for compliance with procedural safeguards in criminal proceedings, the present conference offers a perfect opportunity to reflect on past and current accomplishments in this field. Although in the meantime a long DG Justice research tradition has been established for over 15 years (see EULITA http://www.eulita.eu/european-projects), the Status Questionis publication (Hertog & Van Gucht (eds.), 2008) was a first eye-opener. After almost 10 years of research, the Agis project wanted with this publication to map the provision of legal interpreting (and translation) in Europe. With 194 responses (out of 1119 questionnaires distributed) it showed not only that Member States were not really concerned with legal interpreting, but also that insights and recommendations of the research projects had not reached the users of legal interpreters, mainly legal actors and/or the institutions/authorities. Nevertheless, the EC itself has continued its efforts to improve procedural safeguards by issuing the 2010/64/EU Directive. Now, the question is to know to what extent the EU Member States have implemented this important Directive. The 2014 CEPEJ (European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice) report entitled “European judicial systems – Edition 2014 (2012 data): efficiency and quality of justice” (http://pdfcrop.biz/ebook/title/CEPEJ-2014- Evaluation-report-on-European-Judicial-.html) is not very promising. Chapter 16 (pp. 452-461) focuses on court interpreters and states that in not less than 13 states or entities the title of court interpreter is neither protected or regulated (p. 456), Belgium being one of them. Therefore, we want to show through a historical overview of the research done that there is an urgent need to work in a more interdisciplinary way. Although research has explored this path since decades, it apparently is still not the case when speaking about collaboration between interpreting, law and psychology research departments and police academies. Hence, research projects with different stakeholders involved like ImPLI, Co-Minor-IN/QUEST and TraiLLD recommend on the one hand joint training sessions with different professional groups and on the other hand closer cooperation with the authorities (Ministries of Justice and Home Affairs) in order to meet the changing needs. This presentation will be a step towards more effective interdisciplinary work and will discuss strategies to increase multidisciplinary cooperation: more effective dissemination by involving the interpreter users in research or organizing joint training, to name just a few.status: publishe