The official language of the Magistrate’s Courts in Sierra Leone is English. That is, court proceedings are generally conducted in English: the laws are in same; statements are recorded in same; papers are filed in same; instructions from the bench are in same; the rules of court procedure are in same etc. This is the modus operandi of the Magistrate’s Courts as provided for by the laws of the land as handed down to us by our colonial master, Britian. But it is interesting to note that the overwhelming majority of the people who use this Court in the north of the country hardly understand the language of the Court. Putting it in another way, they bulk of the Magistrate’s Court users in the north are illiterates who cannot understand the language (English) of the Court. Most court users in the north are often very comfortable to speak their language one or mother tongue; and whenever this is made difficult for them, their participation in the court process becomes very much limited. This article will seek to underscore the need for court interpreters as a vital component for the effective administration of justice in northern Sierra Leone.
The need for a trained court interpreter in the Magistrate’s Court in the northern part of Sierra Leone cannot be overstated. There should be a trained court interpreter who is very much versatile with most local dialects in the region as well as the English language who will be charged with the primary responsibility of interpreting from English to the local dialects and vice versa. Many a time court proceedings in the Magistrate’s Courts in the north have been stayed because the parties to the case cannot understand each other’s dialect as well as the language of the Court. In fact some Magistrates in the north do not even understand any local dialect thus helping to compound the problem. Although section 23(5)(e) of the 1991 Constitution of Sierra Leone provides that a person charged with a criminal offence should be accorded without payment the assistance of a court interpreter if such person cannot understand the language used at the trial, this constitutional provision is very seldom being adhered to. It is mostly considered in felonious matters or cases that warrant public interest. In fact even in such cases, this provision is mostly guaranteed to the accused and not the victim. Victims are mostly victimized with regards to being provided with court interpreters in the litigation process. In applying the principle of equality before the law, both parties in the litigation process should have the same opportunity before the law to present their own side of the story with none of the parties enjoying any undue advantage over the other.
The lack of trained court interpreters limits many litigants in this part of the country from having their day in court. The ‘unfriendly’ language of the Court coupled with the ‘unfriendly’ atmosphere of the court house ranks high as the chief reasons why court users in the north are not comfortable with litigation in the Magistrate’s Court. Despite the constitutional provision for accused to be informed in the language that he understands in detail the nature of the charge against him, the lack of trained interpreters limits the application of that constitutional guarantee. Consequently, some of the accused do not even know the nature of the charge for which they have been arraigned before the Court, not to talk about their constitutional rights as provided for by law. They can hardly express their feelings, emotions, ordeals etc without the aid of a trained court interpreter. And compounding the problem further, the frequent interruptions by counsels in the language of the Court whilst the parties to the case are giving testimonies help to inhibit the causality of the trend or sequence of the evidence adduced viz-a-viz the facts of the case. Most of the court users are easily intimidated with legal jargons which they cannot fathom in the ordinary course of the proceedings. As a result of this limitation, most of them prefer to remain silent thereby impeding the course of justice being served. The long and short of it all is that the communication barrier that exists in the Magistrate’s Court in the north greatly undermines the fair dispensation of justice to the bulk of the inhabitants who are mostly illiterates.
The lack of qualified court interpreters in the northern region is partly responsible for delay in court proceedings. In most Magistrate’s Courts in the north, it is not uncommon to find court clerks doubling as interpreters at the same time during proceedings. In fact in some instances, police prosecutors also serve as court interpreters. An example of this practice was demonstrated in the case of The Inspector-General of Police v Foday Conteh in which the accused was charged with an indecent assault on a five-year old girl. The victim was a child and could not speak the language of the Court; she obviously needed an interpreter in the said matter. It was no surprise to many when the interpretation was done by one of the prosecutors in the Bombali district Magistrate’s Court. The work of the police is to represent the Inspector General of Police in prosecuting criminal cases in court rather than serving as court interpreters in the very cases they should be prosecuting. It is the responsibility of the Court to provide litigants with an interpreter when necessary. This is so because where police prosecutors are made to double as interpreters in criminal matters the likelihood that the course of justice will be perverted is high. If the prosecutor who doubles as an interpreter wants to persecute the accused by securing conviction at all cost he will interpret wrongly in order to implicate the accused all the more. On the other hand, if the prosecutor is less inclined to secure a conviction because of personal reasons or otherwise, he will wrongly interpret the testimony of the victim. And stated inter alia, in a region where some magistrates cannot understand the local dialect, corroborating what is written and said during the course of proceedings becomes a huge challenge. In addition, by court officers doubling as interpreters also affects their primary duties in court thus leading delay in trial proceedings. In some instances, court officers only double as interpreters when they have an interest in the matter; in other instances, parties to a case are left to hire the services of non court officers to serve as interpreters who are not easily available.
The implication for justice is that, cases of such nature are frequently adjourned thus violating the right of the victim to fair and speedy trial. Since court prosecutors are not court interpreters, no one can be sure of the way they do the interpretation especially if the interest of the prosecutor in the case is high. Apart from the qualified court interpreter, any other court personnel in the capacity of a court interpreter may neglect other important duties that may be equally important to fair and speedy trial. Consequently, more people will prefer to use the local courts to seek redress where they are more comfortable and allowed to express themselves in their native language.
Concluding therefore, the need for the judiciary to train people in the art of interpretation and assign them to Magistrate’s Courts in the Northern Province should be a matter of priority if justice is to prevail. This will help in guaranteeing the rights of persons who do not necessarily understand the language of the Court-English. A trained and qualified court interpreter will be better placed to interpret the legal diction of the judicial process to the litigants in courts free from prejudice. The training of such personnel should be also gender sensitive as women will be better placed to serve as interpreters in cases of sexual and gender-based violence especially where the victims are children as in the case cited above.
With the bulk of the population in the north very much limited in their understanding of the language of the Court, it therefore behooves all stakeholders working on justice sector reform issues to prioritize the need for having trained and qualified interpreters in the Magistrate’s Courts in that part of the country for the purpose of realizing the “justice for all” vision of the judiciary.