CityNews Montreal (11/01/24) By Sidhartha Banerjee
The Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada was served with a legal notice last week by a Quebec civil rights group challenging the high court’s refusal to translate its historic decisions into French.
Droits collectifs Québec filed an application in federal court in Montreal after failing to get the Office of the Registrar—which serves as the administrative body for the court—to translate the documents.
The lawsuit involves more than 6,000 decisions rendered between 1877 and 1969, the year the Official Languages Act came into effect, requiring federal institutions to publish content in English and French.
The rights group initially filed a complaint with the Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada Raymond Théberge. In response, the Supreme Court of Canada, which has been translating decisions since 1970, argued that the law doesn’t apply retroactively.
In September, Théberge ruled that while the law doesn’t apply retroactively, any decisions published on the court’s website must be available in both official languages. The failure to translate the judgments amounted to an offence under the act, he said, giving the high court 18 months to correct the situation.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Wagner said the decisions before 1970 are primarily of historical interest, arguing they are “legal cultural heritage made obsolete by the evolution of Quebec and Canadian law.” The court lacks the resources to carry out such an operation, he said, adding it would take a decade and cost upwards of $20 million.
François Côté, the lawyer for Droits collectifs Québec, disagreed.
“Court decisions constitute precedents, they bear legal weight, and they have legal meaning, and they will entail legal consequences in the present day,” Côté said. “Even if the law has changed, if new laws were adopted or laws were repealed…what about legal principles? What about legal reasoning?”
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The Brussels Times (10/31/24)
The Belgian Chamber of Translators and Interpreters (CBTI) has warned of potential new strikes following a spontaneous protest by a dozen interpreters at the mega Sky ECC trial.
The verdict hearing of Belgium’s biggest drug trial was delayed by 45 minutes last week due to the protest. On the same morning, the Ministry of Justice announced yet another delay in payments for sworn translators and interpreters.
“This was the last straw for interpreters,” said CBTI spokesperson Henri Boghe. “Some colleagues haven’t been paid for two or three months. We work as freelancers and obviously need to pay our bills.”
“We hope to have a discussion with the outgoing Minister of Justice Paul Van Tigchelt. If this does not materialize or yield a positive outcome, we will plan structured actions from mid-November,” Boghe said. In the meantime, Boghe said further spontaneous actions have not been ruled out.
The CBTI emphasized that interpreters are crucial for fair justice. Without them, suspects who do not speak French or Dutch cannot be interrogated, and defendants risk being acquitted due to procedural errors.
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Portland Press Herald (10/25/24) By Riley Board
Ambassadors from France, Gabon, and the Central African Republic visited Deering High School in Portland, Maine, on October 25 to discuss how to support French-language education in the state.
French Ambassador to the U.S. Laurent Bili, Gabonese Ambassador Noël Nelson Messone, and Central African Republic Ambassador Martial Ndoubou presented at Deering High School, the most diverse high school in Maine with a strong Francophone community.
French is an official language of more than 25 nations, is widely spoken in over a dozen African countries, and, according to school district officials, was the eighth most spoken language in Portland schools last year. It’s also the heritage language of more than 800 students in Maine.
Alexis Kanamugire, a French teacher at Deering High School, helped organize the event and told the audience about his background as a French-speaking refugee, his delight at finding so many French speakers among Deering High School students, and his efforts to bring more French heritage events to the school. But he also worries that there aren’t enough opportunities for French education in Maine, especially at younger ages.
“All of us immigrants, when we get here, we immediately feel the pressure of mastering English, finding a job or two, to the extent that we are ready to sacrifice a lot of things, including the French language,” Kanamugire said.
Nathalie Gorey, president of the Maine chapter of the Alliance Française, said the French language is a part of Maine’s past, and its future. She described the state’s Acadian French-speaking roots and the arrival of those from French-speaking nations in Africa to the greater Portland region.
“These newly arrived refugees have joined the Franco community and the Acadian community to revitalize French, and thus created a renaissance of the language in our state,” she said.
Gorey, who brought 25 French teachers from across the state to the event with her, also made the case for expanded French education, especially for younger students, who have a greater capacity for language learning.
She advocated for more French educators while acknowledging the budget constraints on teachers. She also called out the state’s lack of a foreign-language requirement for high school graduation.
“Unfortunately, this policy tends to send a message to students that world languages–French, for example–are not valued, or that you don’t need to study a language to be successful in life,” Gorey said. “On the contrary, au contraire, French remains an important language globally.”
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Toronto Star (10/17/24) By Hannah Alberga
According to a report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), patients who are older, don’t speak English, and don’t have a high school education are more likely to experience harm during a hospital stay in Canada.
CIHI measured preventable harmful events from 2023 to 2024, such as bed sores and medication errors, experienced by patients who received acute care in hospitals.
The report indicates that patients who don’t speak English or French are 30% more likely to experience harm. Patients without a high school education are 20% more likely to endure harm compared to those with higher education levels. The report also found that patients 85 and older are five times more likely to experience harm during a hospital stay compared to those under 20.
“The goal of this report is to get folks thinking about equity as being a key dimension of the patient safety effort within a hospital,” said Dana Riley, one of the authors of the report and a program lead on CIHI’s population health team.
The report indicates that when a health care provider and a patient don’t speak the same language, the result can be the administration of an incorrect test or procedure. Similarly, Riley said a lower level of education is associated with a lower level of health literacy, which can result in increased vulnerability to communication errors.
“It’s fairly costly to the patient and it’s costly to the system,” Riley explained, noting the average hospital stay for a patient who experiences harm is four times more expensive than the cost of a hospital stay without a harmful event–$42,558 compared to $9,072.
“I think there are a variety of different reasons why we might start to think about patient safety, think about equity, as key interconnected dimensions of health care quality,” Riley said.
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CNN (10/11/24) By Christian Edwards
The 2024 Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to Han Kang, a South Korean author, for her “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”
Han’s novels, novellas, essays, and short story collections have variously explored themes of patriarchy, violence, grief, and humanity. Her 2007 novel, The Vegetarian, which was translated into English in 2015 by Deborah Smith, won the International Booker Prize in 2016. The novel charts a young woman’s attempt to live a more “plant-like” existence after suffering macabre nightmares about human cruelty.
Han is the first South Korean author to win the literature prize, and just the 18th woman to win since the prize was first awarded in 1901. The prize, which was announced in Sweden in October, carries a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million).
In a statement posted to Facebook, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol described Han’s win as “a great achievement in the history of Korean literature” and a “national occasion.” He added: “Han has turned the painful scars of our modern history into great literature.”
“I’m so surprised and absolutely I’m honored,” Han said. “I grew up with Korean literature, which I feel very close to. So, I hope this news is nice for Korean literature readers, and my friends and writers.”
Novelist Max Porter, who edited Smith’s translation of The Vegetarian, said Han is “a vital voice and a writer of extraordinary humanity. Her work is a gift to us all. I am beyond thrilled she has been recognized by the Nobel committee. New readers will discover and be changed by her miraculous work.”
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George Mason University (10/22/24) By Buzz McClain
A team of 15 volunteer students from the Jurisprudence Learning Community (JPLC), one of five learning communities within George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, are spending time at the Fairfax General District Court complex in Virginia conducting a court signage survey project. The goal is to help court officials understand the accessibility needs of court users, particularly those whose first language is not English.
The students have been visiting the courthouse in shifts each weekday for a month to administer surveys to judges, attorneys, deputies, bailiffs, and visitors. When the survey period is over, the students will compile the results to gain an understanding of the steps the court should take to increase accessibility for individuals, particularly in regards to language and accessibility to translated signage.
“The results of the Court Signage Survey Project will be sent to the District Court for review and ultimately compiled into a larger report that will go to the Virginia Supreme Court,” said Assistant Professor Shea Holman, director of the JPLC.
General District Court Judge Dipti Pidikiti-Smith reached out to Holman for the project.
“She specifically wanted to connect with George Mason students,” Holman said. “We are such a diverse campus, and the JPLC is a place where students from many different backgrounds have the opportunity to experience the legal field firsthand. This is an amazing experience for students to interact directly with individuals attempting to navigate our legal system and to spend time in a courthouse setting.”
“The most memorable experience has been engaging with court users directly,” said Mohammad Ibrahim Al Zubaidi, a junior majoring in government and international politics. “Listening to their stories about the communication barriers they face in such a crucial setting has been eye-opening. It has reinforced the importance of the work we’re doing and the impact this project can have on improving access to justice for everyone.”
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