news Colorado Judicial Branch
Mary J. Mullarkey, Chief Justice
Gerald Marroney, State Court Administrator
Feb. 22, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Karen Salaz
303/837-3633
1-800-888-0001 Ext. 633
Judicial Department language interpreter program expanding
Providing access to justice to all who need it, regardless of the language they speak, is an issue faced everyday in trial courts across our state. The Colorado Judicial Department court interpreter program has been expanding to meet these needs and evolving to reflect the diversity of court users.
“One of the critical components in ensuring access to justice is to provide interpreters for those who do not speak English,” says Melinda Gonzalez-Hibner, state court interpreter program administrator. “Expansion of the program to include ethics training for all languages; and certification testing of interpreters in all languages for which tests are available marks a milestone for the program. It is a tangible measure of our commitment to provide all litigants equal access to the courts.”
The court interpreter program establishes the professional competency of interpreters working in the courts through its certification testing component. As a member of the Consortium for State Court Interpreter Certification of the National Center for State Courts, the Colorado Judicial Branch has access to statistically valid certification tests in 13 different languages, but has not until recently tested interpreters working in languages other than Spanish.
The Colorado Judicial Branch began training, testing and certifying Spanish language court interpreters in 1999. In September 2004, certification testing was offered to interpreters working in languages other than Spanish for the first time. Interpreters representing 26 languages have received ethics training; and interpreters working in Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese, Korean, Mandarin and Cantonese have participated in certification testing. To date, 88 Spanish court interpreters and 3 Russian court interpreters have been certified in Colorado. “High quality, competent interpreting in a variety of languages allows the courts to carry out their duties properly; and affords court litigants from many different linguistic backgrounds confidence that they will have their day in court,” says Gonzalez-Hibner.
The court interpreter program offers a two-day orientation to educate bilingual speakers and interpreters working in other fields about the qualifications and ethical standards necessary to serve as a court interpreter. The orientation is generally offered twice a year for Spanish language interpreters and once a year for interpreters working in languages other than Spanish. The certification exam will be offered to interpreters working in languages other than Spanish again in September, 2005.
Additional information on the program is available at http://www.courts.state.co.us/chs/hr/interpreters/Certification%20Info.pdf .
This information is provided as an e-mail service of the Colorado State Judicial Branch, Office of State Court Administrator, 1301 Pennsylvania Street, Suite 300, Denver, Colo. 80203. To discontinue this service or update your e-mail address, please respond to this message with your name, contact information and any comments.