According to the Globe and Mail, the Attorney General of Ontario is being served a $35 million class action lawsuit today over the poor quality of courtroom translation. The plaintiffs say that incompetent translators are leading to miscarriages of justice and wrongful convictions.
The suit is being filed by Avtar Sidhu, a Punjabi speaker who was convicted of assault a few years ago. During his trial, the transcript records his interpreter saying ‘henh?” 27 times, indicating that he didn’t know how to translate what was said. Justice Casey Hill, who has done a review of translation services in the provincial justice system, found that courthouses are routinely using underqualified translators — so bad, in fact, that many have flunked the basic translation tests required, but are used in court anyway. Justice Hill called this kind of shoddy translation a ‘critical threat to justice.’ Sidhu and his lawyers are now seeking to certify the suit as a class action.