Every year, Belgian authorities spend a considerable budget on translations in criminal proceedings. These translations not only facilitate cooperation between European judicial services, but also enable communication between Belgian judicial services and foreign-language parties. For certain foreign-language parties, the right to translation has been established by EU law: Directives 2012/29/EU and 2010/64/EU guarantee a free translation of essential documents for victims and accused persons. The transposition of these directives, however, proved to be difficult: Belgium did not meet the foreseen deadline (2013) and only transposed the directives in 2016 (European Commission, 2018).
This contribution reports on the results of an ethnographic research project, the aim of which is to investigate how the Belgian courts put the right to translation into practice. I analyzed 245 criminal files in which the Dutch-speaking correctional court in Ghent ordered translations between 2018 and 2021. In addition, I conducted interviews with magistrates and court staff.
My analyses show, first of all, that more than 70% of the collected texts are translations from a foreign language into Dutch and are intended for the court. This predominance of translations for the court can be explained by the strict unilingual nature of the criminal procedure (Dejemeppe, 2011; Vanden Bosch, 2017). However, the relatively small volume of translations into foreign languages also implies that suspects and victims often do not (or cannot?) make use of their right to translation.
Secondly, I could establish that the Ghent police frequently replace interrogations with the assistance of an interpreter (as stipulated in Directive 2010/64/EU and national legislation) by forms on which non-Dutch speaking suspects, witnesses and victims write down their statement in a language of their choice (often not their mother tongue, but a lingua franca). This practice raises questions about literacy (is everyone capable of writing down a statement?) and equality (is it fair to replace an interrogation with a half-page handwritten account?) (Engelen, 1999; Bambust, 2016).
These findings suggest that, even though Belgian authorities have transposed the EU directives, the current system does not always succeed in guaranteeing the fairness of the proceedings.
Bambust, I. (2016) 'Een taalkronkel in het Belgische politieverhoor', De Taalsector.
Dejemeppe, B. (2011) 'L'emploi des langues en matière pénale. Réponses à douze questions ordinaires', in La langue du procès. Antwerpen: Intersentia, pp. 49–64.
Engelen, J. (1999) 'Het politieverhoor na Franchimont', De orde van de dag, (5), pp. 43–54.
European Commission (2018). Report on the implementation of Directive 2010/64/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 October 2010 on the right to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings.
European Parliament and Council directive 2010/64/EU on the right to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings (2010) Official Journal, L280.
European Parliament and Council directive 2012/29/EU establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime, and replacing Council Framework Decision 2001/220/JHA (2012) Official Journal, L315/57.
Vanden Bosch, Y. (2017) 'Het recht op vertolking en vertaling in strafzaken & de omzetting van de EU-richtlijnen', Tijdschrift voor Strafrecht, (2), pp. 79–107.
