Some lawyers are warning that legal rights are at stake after Norway’s justice ministry made changes in how interpreters are paid. The changes resulted in what some interpreters claim was a 30 percent reduction in their pay.
“I’m now turning down all jobs in the courts and for the police,” interpreter Natalia Maria Vigrestad told newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad. So are others who are members of the Norwegian interpreters association (Norsk tolkeforening), which has advised members to reject offers of less than four hours for the rest of the year.
In one case, the defense attorney for a man from Ukraine who’d been arrested in a stabbing incident in Stavanger claimed his client understood little of what went on in his custody hearing. The local Sør-Rogaland Court hadn’t been able to hire an interpreter and resorted to using Google translate at his custody hearing.
The justice ministry defends the changes in fees paid to intepreters, noting that “we had to reduce costs in some areas” and that was approved in Parliament. Defense attorney Odd Rune Torstrup told Aftenbladet that he thinks legal rights are at stake and he can’t understand why interpreters’ fees were cut to NOK 917 an hour (USD 94). State statistics bureau SSB reports that interpreters earn an average of NOK 660,000 a year but work as freelancers and receive none of the benefits of salaried employees.
NewsinEnglish.no staff
