Analysis On The Roles And Positions Of Court Interpreters In China

It is always among the most important issues in every civilized country to protect thedue rights of litigants during the whole process of hearing. The linguistic gap betweenthe litigants and the court may cause serious problems which might make the wholetrial unfair to some extent. As in China, such gap may be resulted from both domesticand international factors since it is a multi-nation country and is gradually playing anactive role in international affairs. Without certain mechanism on the protection of theright to an interpreter, litigants who cannot understand the language of the court mayfind it hard to be actually participating his own hearing. His due right to a fair trialand legal right to an interpreter would be jeopardized and the trial would lose itsauthority. As a well-recognized solution to such problem, court interpreters are oftencalled for assistance.This study aims at figuring out the detailed roles of court interpreters under variouscircumstances in recent China so as to provide a brief outline for the possibleestablishment of the court interpreting mechanism in this country. The author wouldcarry out this discussion from three perspectives, namely the theoretical basis,practical positions and social group functions of court interpreters. Theoreticalfeatures of the work of court interpreters would be pointed out through thecomparison between the requirements for court interpreters and interpreters forgeneral purposes. As for the practical category, the author figures out the duepositions for court interpreters according to various types of lawsuit cases under thecurrent Chinese legal system. The author tends to see the interpreter for criminal andadministrative litigations as the guarantee of the protection of the litigant’s right; andthe interpreter for civil procedures is regarded as a third party on court with his expert suggestion. Last but not least, the author views the role of court interpreters from thegroup perspective. The critical functions of associations formed by court interpretersare thus listed and the problems of the fields concerned, namely the certificate systemand collaboration among associations, are also pointed out for further improvement.