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The language services company contracted to provide courtroom services faces a fresh headache after it emerged that interpreters and translators are joining forces to potentially bring a group claim over employment rights.
Court interpreters have raised a long list of grievances with language services contractor thebigword after claiming a new booking system has made their lives difficult.
According to the document, seen by the Gazette, once a job is accepted it disappears from the app, leaving interpreters without access to critical information. Interpreters often find themselves in court without a timesheet, reference number, or knowing where they need to go. A ‘confusing’ interface makes it difficult to distinguish between booked jobs and offers.
A UK-based association for practising translators and interpreters has accused the Isle of Man Constabulary of putting 'public trust in our legal and governance systems' at risk.
A mass court observation project which sat in on more than 1,100 hearings has reported that more than a fifth of hearings (230) involved a defendant for whom English was not a first language. An interpreter was not provided in 104 of those cases. Defendants who needed interpreters were ‘some of the worst served by the court’, the report said.
