SOMI's response to Home Office consultation on revised PACE codes of practice
The Home Office
By email to pacereview@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
24 September 2013
Response to the open consultation “Revised PACE codes of practice: C and H”
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing on behalf of the Society of Official Metropolitan Interpreters UK Ltd (SOMI UK). Please consider our response below in conjunction with that of the Joint Professional Interpreters for Justice (PI4J) of which we are a party.
All our members are official Metropolitan Police interpreters. Under the National Agreement on the use of Interpreters in the Criminal Justice System (NA), we are required to be on the National Register of Public Service Interpreters (NRPSI) or the National Registers of Communication Professionals working with Deaf and Deafblind People (NRCPD). We are vetted to CTC level or above by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS). We are all professional interpreters with academic qualifications and proven experience of interpreting within the criminal and civil justice systems.
The comments below concern the Home Office consultation on the proposed changes to the PACE codes of practice C and H4 which aim to implement the EU Directive on the right to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings, and in particular the ‘Notes for Guidance 13A” copied below.
Read the full response here.