News stories featuring scenarios where there is some hold up in, or some pending miscarriage of justice due to the lack of suitable interpreters, seem to be all too common these days: in fact, although not strictly justice related, the recent case of several deaf students from Concord, Massachusetts, who were forced to relocate to new schools some distance away because their current schools were unable to locate sign language interpreters, highlights this general theme perfectly.

It is to redress the balance then, that I have pleasure in reporting an instance where all the stops were pulled out in order to locate an interpreter so as to afford a defendant fair representation in Court.

When a non English speaking man was due up in court in Larimer County, Colorado, the Colorado Court Interpreter Program found themselves in somewhat of a fix. After much deduction, it was found that the man spoke Shipibo; a language not much encountered in the suburbs of that State; in fact Shipibo is an indigenous language only spoken by some 26,000 Amazonian speakers native to the rainforests of Brazil and Peru.

With this fact ascertained, the Coordinator of the State Court Interpreter Program Emy Lopez, swung into action. Through a former colleague based in Denver, who also happened by chance to be from Peru, enquiries were made and a suitable candidate was found: a former Missionary who was fluent in Shipibo and who also happened to be a qualified interpreter.

There was now only one further hurdle to justice: the interpreter happened to be located in Washington DC. This time technology provided the answer and with the provision of video conferencing set up by the Courts Service, a fair trial was able to proceed.

“This is definitely the biggest and most extensive search that we have ever undertaken” said Ms Lopez.

…we certainly commend her efforts!