Friday 23 May 2014

Sir James Munby criticises Capita's failure to provide interpreters as ordered by court

http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/judgments/in-the-matter-of-j-and-s-children/ 
23 May 2014

"The hearing on 7 May 2014
9. The hearing before me on 7 May 2014 was unable to proceed. Despite the order made by Judge Murdoch, and although HMCTS had, as was subsequently conceded by it, gone through the appropriate procedures with Capita Translation and Interpreting Limited (Capita) to book two interpreters, no interpreter was present at court. I had no choice but to adjourn the hearing. How could I do otherwise? It would have been unjust, indeed inhumane, to continue with the final hearing of applications as significant as those before me – this, after all, was their final opportunity to prevent the adoption of their children – if the parents were unable to understand what was being said. Anyone tempted to suggest that an adjournment was not necessary might care to consider what our reaction would be if an English parent before a foreign court in similar circumstances was not provided with an interpreter.
10. I accordingly adjourned the hearing until 15 May 2014. I directed that HMCTS was to provide two interpreters for that hearing. I directed that Capita’s Relationship Director, Sonia Facchini, file a written statement (with statement of truth) explaining the circumstances in which and the reasons why no interpreters had been provided by Capita for the hearing on 7 May 2014. I gave Capita permission to apply to vary or discharge this order. It chose not to. I reserved the costs of the hearing on 7 May 2014 to the hearing on 15 May 2014 “for consideration of, inter alia, whether Capita should pay such costs.”

Capita
11. Ms Facchini’s statement is dated 14 May 2014. I need not go into the full details. That is a matter for a future occasion. For immediate purposes there are three points demanding notice. The first is that, according to Ms Facchini, the contractual arrangements between Capita and the interpreters it provides do not give Capita the ability to require that any particular interpreter accepts any particular assignment, or even to honour any engagement which the interpreter has accepted. The consequence, apparently, was that in this case the two interpreters who had accepted the assignment (one on 14 and the other on 17 April 2014) later cancelled (on 5 and 1 May 2014 respectively). The second is that it is only at 2pm on the day before the hearing that Capita notifies the court that there is no interpreter assigned. The third is the revelation that on 7 May 2014 Capita had only 29 suitably qualified Slovak language interpreters on its books (only 13 within a 100 miles radius of the Royal Courts of Justice) whereas it was requested to provide 39 such interpreters for court hearings that day. This is on any view a concerning state of affairs. If the consequence is that a hearing such as that before me on 7 May 2014 has to be abandoned then that is an unacceptable state of affairs. It might be thought that something needs to be done.
12. Whether the underlying causes are to be found in the nature of the contract between the Ministry of Justice and HMCTS or whoever and Capita, or in the nature of the contract between Capita and the interpreters it retains, or in the sums paid respectively to Capita and its interpreters, or in an inadequate supply of interpreters (unlikely one might have thought in a language such as Slovak), I do not know. We need to find out."


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