Police officials are not interpreters – Solidarity
13 March 2023
According to Solidarity, it is unfair and absurd to expect police officials to act as interpreters for victims who want to make statements in a language other than English. This comes after the Western Cape police chief, Lieutenant-General Thembisile Patekile issued an instruction requiring that from now on all A1 statements and official South African Police Serve (SAPS) documents must be in English.
Solidarity is of the opinion that it is outrageous and irresponsible to expect of the already overburdened police officials to act as interpreters, having to translate statements as a rule while neither the official nor the victim necessarily has the required language skills to assess the accuracy of the translation.
“When charges are laid at a police station – especially criminal charges – the accuracy of a statement’s content is non-negotiable. It is not just about the general facts and about conveying the idea, but about the very fine nuances. To expect people in areas in the Western Cape, where only a small minority of the population is completely fluent in English, to make statements in English, can lead to defeating the ends of justice and it places an unreasonable burden on our members in the SAPS,” Ronel Stander, organiser for the public sector at Solidarity explained.
“Afrikaans is the first language of about half of the Western Cape’s population and large percentages of those whose home language is not Afrikaans can speak Afrikaans, while English is only the first language of 20% of people in the Western Cape. This policy is blind to these realities and there are serious practical implications of such an absurd rule.”
Solidarity explains that, to its knowledge, not one of its members or any other official has ever received any training to be able to provide such a service, nor has the SAPS made any effort to deploy experts to police stations to fulfil such a role.
“People who make statements to the police are often already traumatised and confused, which complicates the process of taking a statement. To require the added variable of a mandatory translation by an official in such a situation, is completely unfeasible. Moreover, the SAPS has made no effort to train officials or to contract experts. This policy is in itself already harmful, but its implementation will be totally devastating,” Stander stated.
"South Africa has 11 official languages, and no person may be deprived of the right to have access to an efficient legal system simply because they, or a police official, do not understand a specific language. Our members already work long hours, often in unsafe areas. They do not need such ridiculous instructions to make their job now even more difficult,” Stander concluded.
Issued by Ronel Stander, Organiser: Public Sector, Solidarity, 13 March 2023
