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Pacific courts’ interpreters get intermediate training
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Posted on Oct 20 2011
The 2011 Pacific Judicial Council Court Interpreter Training was recently held on Saipan, concluding on Oct. 7.
Associate Justice John A. Manglona, as acting chief justice, gave the conference’s welcoming remarks to more than 30 attendees from the CNMI, Guam, Federated States of Micronesia, American Samoa, the Marshall Islands, and Palau.
Similar conferences for translators have been held on Rota and Guam in the last three years.
This training session was an intermediate level presentation on the principles and techniques of interpreting, focused in part on the duty of the court interpreter to place the non-English speaking person on the same footing in the courtroom with those who understand English. Attendance was limited to those who had previously attended interpreters training and exhibited proficiency in basic interpreter skills.
Featured presenters during the conference were accomplished trainers Debi Tulang-De Silva, J.D., program director of Hawaii’s Office on Equality and Access to the Courts, and Dr. Suzanne Zeng from the University of Hawaii’s Center for Interpretation and Translation Studies.
Tulang-De Silva has been the project director of the Office on Equality and Access to the Courts at the Hawaii’s State Judiciary since February 2005. She has been instrumental in establishing the Hawaii’s State Judiciary’s very first court interpreter certification program, which has served as a model program for organizations with interpreting needs in multi-languages.
Zeng, a member of the Supreme Court Committee for Court Interpreting for over a decade, has been actively involved in establishing higher standards and certification for Hawaii State court interpreters.
The Pacific Judicial Council, led by its current president, Guam Supreme Court Chief Justice F. Philip Carbullido, is composed of court jurisdictions from American Samoa, the Territory of Guam, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Northern Mariana Islands, the Republic of Palau, and the Marshall Islands. The Council conducted the training conference with funding and educational resources coordinated through Sally Pym, Pacific Islands Judicial Programs, Office of the Circuit Executive, San Francisco. (Judiciary)
