Some court interpreters express concerns about standards established by professional association

CALGARY Some court interpreters in Calgary are calling on the province’s justice minister to demand one industry group get the backing of a national organization.

In 2015, the province ordered court interpreters to be members of either the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Alberta (ATIA) or the Alberta Court Interpreters Association (ACIA).

The ATIA is a member of the Canadian Translators, Terminologists and Interpreters Council, and through that is affiliated with the International Federation of Translators.

The ACIA, which started out as a group lobbying the government for a pay raise for interpreters, is independent.

Critics of the ACIA argue it does not have a national governing body as the ATIA does.

Those critics say they want the province to step in to make sure cases are not compromised by unqualified interpreters.

“Primarily it’s the quality of the interpreters that are being provided to the court system, they are definitely not competent,” said Sumita Anand, who has worked as an interpreter for 15 years.

She said she hasn’t renewed her membership with ACIA because she is concerned about how it operates and approves its members.

Linguist Gary Donovan said he is also worried about the ACIA and its processes.

“The testing procedures are not adequate,” he said. “People get through that don’t read, write and speak when they should read, write, speak the language.”

Zakie Hage, president of the board of directors of ACIA, defended

the organization.

“We do our utmost to go through every file, every application and go through stuff,” he said. “We’ve went as far as to call different universities to clarify or make sure that’s not a fake certificate.”

However, he said board members are considering joining a national body.

“We’re tightening our guidelines, we have spoken to a few of them to see what the requirements are so we can be affiliated with somebody nationally,” he said.

Alberta Justice told CTV News that both groups are responsible to ensure their members are fully qualified and have the necessary training and certification to provide interpretation services.