Justice through Interpreting in Courts. A Case of Machakos Courts in Machakos County, Kenya

Emma Mwende Mulwa & Dorah Riah Mabule
University of South Africa
Email: mwendemulwa@gmail.com

Abstract: The art of interpreting is unique and beyond changing a word to another language. It includes emotions, gestures, body language and facial expressions. This article, aims at bringing to the fore the flawed use of interpreting in Subordinate Courts. The article evaluates if interpreting in these courts is genuine or just a lip service. Through the descriptive study carried out, qualitative analysis of the data collected in interviews, questionnaires and observations was done. While witnesses and the accused filled questionnaires, magistrates and clerks were interviewed after being sampled purposefully from the court proceedings observed by the researcher. The findings were that during court proceedings, interpreters poorly do their job. The accused and witnesses use indigenous languages more comfortably than the official or national languages. The interpreter is mostly required not because no one understands the accused and the witnesses in their mother tongue, but because the language of the courts must be official or national language. Magistrates encounter barriers including, interpreters not knowing their indigenous languages, having no skills of interpreting, often allowing long utterances from accused persons and witnesses and ending up forgetting them, resulting in poor reporting, getting carried away by emotions, and not reporting exactly how and what the speaker said. These reasons render the use of interpreters unjust. It is recommended to have some members of staff from the dominant community as magistrates and prosecutors to enable more meaningful communication, train interpreters, and professionalize interpreting. Clerks to be employed as clerks and not double as interpreters.