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CULTURE AND THE COURT INTERPRETER

In New Zealand, interpreters provide ‘vital services for nearly 10,000 hearings a year in more than 150 languages’ (Ministry of Justice chief operating officer, Carl Crafer according to Nichols, 2021). Despite this, the Ministry of Justice Guidelines for Interpreters (Ministry of Justice, 2021) (‘MOJ Guidelines’) provide very limited guidance on how court interpreters are expected to approach issues related to potential intercultural miscommunication. In this paper, I use the phrase ‘potential intercultural miscommunication’ to mean the possibility of otherwise unrecognised interpersonal misunderstandings occurring, due to differing customs, norms, and behaviours. This paper aims to examine the potential for such undetected intercultural miscommunications to occur in the criminal court, the impact they can have and what obligations, if any, should be placed on court interpreters and judges when such issues arise.


Introduction
In New Zealand, interpreters provide 'vital services for nearly 10,000 hearings a year in more than 150 languages' (Ministry of Justice chief operating officer, Carl Crafer according to Nichols, 2021). Despite this, the Ministry of Justice Guidelines for Interpreters (Ministry of Justice, 2021) ('MOJ Guidelines') provide very limited guidance on how court interpreters are expected to approach issues related to potential intercultural miscommunication.
In this paper, I use the phrase 'potential intercultural miscommunication' to mean the possibility of otherwise unrecognised interpersonal misunderstandings occurring, due to differing customs, norms, and behaviours. This paper aims to examine the potential for such undetected intercultural miscommunications to occur in the criminal court, the impact they can have and what obligations, if any, should be placed on court interpreters and judges when such issues arise.

Background
The question on whether and if interpreters should be advising on cultural matters is one with no clear answer. Many interpreters see providing cultural guidance as being outside the scope of their roles and a line that ethically, they should not cross. However, often interpreters are the only party who share the linguistic and cultural backgrounds of both sides. This arguably makes them best placed to raise any such potential misunderstandings to the attention of the court (see Chen, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Parties in the Courts: A Chinese Case Study, 2019, p. 36;and Hale, 2014).
Prior to Australia establishing their own, detailed, 'Recommended National Standards for Working with Interpreters in Courts and Tribunals' (Judicial Council on Cultural Diversity, 2017) ('Australian Guidelines'), Professor Sandra Hale conducted a study examining the expectations of interpreters in comparison to that of judicial officers and tribunal members in relation to interpreters raising potential intercultural miscommunication issues in court (Hale, 2014). This study found there to be significant differences between the judicial officers' and tribunal members' expectations in comparison to that of the interpreters'. 87% of judicial officers and tribunal members noted they would expect interpreters to raise such potential issues to the courts' attention, while only 55% of interpreters noted they would do so. This divergence highlights the discord of understandings between the two professions as to the interpreter's role and expectations around it when no clear guidance on such topics exist.
The results of Hale's study are concerning from an access to justice perspective as depending on the interpreter you had on the day, you would have around a 50/50 chance as to whether the interpreter would bring such potential issues to the court's attention or not. This means, arguably, that judges and tribunal members in half of the court appearances which use court interpreters would be better informed culturally than the other, creating a more culturally informed court process for some individuals in comparison to others. With the current MOJ Guidelines providing very little in the way of guidance as to when and how to bring such issues to the court's attention, it is foreseeable that a similar disconnect currently exists in our courtrooms.
It is timely to be researching and considering these issues as the New Zealand Government begins to implement new standards requiring certification by 2024 for all interpreters wishing to work across the public sector (Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment, 2021).
Given my undergraduate studies in both law and languages, and post-graduate studies in intercultural communication and interpreting, I believe I am well-placed to undertake such research and critical analysis into this area. It is hoped this research will be of practical assistance to the New Zealand Government and encourage further development of detailed guidance for our court interpreters.

Structure of this Paper
This paper is based on literary research and is divided in to four major parts.
In the first part, I provide an executive summary of some of the most common types of intercultural miscommunications which have historically occurred or could likely occur in court. This summary will be based on both New Zealand examples and examples from other overseas common law jurisdictions, due to the similarities they share with our evidence law practises.
Based on my prior knowledge in this area, I hypothesized that the most common types of potential intercultural miscommunication in the courtroom could largely be grouped into three categories: linguistic; body language; and cultural norms. However, as I will explore in this first part, my research highlighted that the potential for such intercultural miscommunications is far broader than this.
In the second part, I shall outline the current, limited guidance found in New Zealand on this issue, before moving on to look at practical guidance currently implemented internationally in the third part of this paper.
I had originally anticipated to do case studies on Australia, England and Wales, the United States of America and Canada. However, during the course of my research it became apparent that a detailed understanding of this number of case studies was too ambitious for the scope of this paper. As such, I have chosen to focus primarily on Australia (as our closest neighbour, with a similar legal and social culture) and England and Wales (a jurisdiction which has played a fundamental role in shaping our legal system into what it is today).
I chose these jurisdictions as they are both common law, Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions and tend to be jurisdictions commonly referred to when examining international law for precedents, here in Aotearoa New Zealand. I hypothesized that both of these jurisdictions would have clear and detailed, official guidance for court interpreters on how to address such potential intercultural miscommunications. I anticipated that examining the guidance provided by these jurisdictions would be of assistance when moving on to part 4 of this paper: Suggestions for Aotearoa New Zealand.
This fourth and final part will engage in a critical analysis of all the research gathered in light of Aotearoa New Zealand's social and legal contexts, providing suggestions for future development based on this research. I note that this research is focused on languages and cultures outside the three national languages of New Zealand, being New Zealand English, Māori and New Zealand Sign Language. Māori and New Zealand Sign Language each have specific legislation tailored around the use of these languages in court. This paper focuses on languages and cultures which at present, do not have such additional legislation or unique legal processes in place.

Part 1: Intercultural Miscommunication in Court
"We all view the world through culturally tinted lenses, and we rarely take them off." - (Liu, Volčič, & Gallois, 2015, p. 54) To be able to appropriately assess the importance of cultural considerations in the New Zealand criminal courtroom, we must first understand why we need to be aware of potential intercultural miscommunications and what these can look like in practise. This part will reflect on both of these aspects in turn.

The Importance of Intercultural Communication Awareness in Court
The recognition of and ability to appropriately respond to intercultural miscommunication issues are of utmost importance in the courtroom setting. The courtroom is a very daunting environment, in which, by its very nature, judgments on others are passed. These judgments can have dire consequences. This section will delve into the nuances of culture and communication, review some of the prominent aspects of the New Zealand legal culture, before reflecting on how the combination of these two elements could lead to potential miscommunication.
'Communication' can occur a number of ways, including language, touch, eye contact and gestures. What is required for successful communication, is for all parties to understand a common 'code' (Liu, Volčič, & Gallois, 2015, p. 26), one of the most prominent being a shared cultural background. 'Culture' is very diverse but can broadly be seen as "the distinctive ideas, customs, social behaviour, products, or way of life of a particular nation, society, people or period." (Oxford University Press, 2021). Due to the broad and all-encompassing nature of 'culture', it can be challenging to recognise the difference between 'culture' and 'stereotypes' in practice.
It is also important to be conscious of New Zealand's legal culture and how this may vary from cultural expectations others may possess. A prominent jurisprudential view is that law can be seen as a 'mirror' of society and that the relationship between law and society is strongly connected to that particular society's customs and morality (see Tamanaha, 2001). Our legal system is strongly based off that of England and Wales, which over time has been developed and adapted to reflect our own cultural values.
As legal systems are founded within a particular cultures, these cultures are often reflected in the law in relation to a culture's understandings of right and wrong, what appropriate systems for the criminal process look like, and can even be embedded in our black letter law (for example the 'reasonable person' test leads to the presumption that a judge or individual jurors would assess this based on a 'reasonable person' of their own individual culture. For a more detailed discussion of this point, see Chen, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Parties in the Courts: A Chinese Case Study, 2019, p. 45).
As our criminal justice system is founded on different cultural values to that of other cultures, it is not surprising that ethnic minorities feel the system does not align with their values (see Mitchell, 2020;and Judicial College (England and Wales), 2021, p. 211). This is also likely to be reflective of why we can see higher incarceration rates of some minority It is also important to be aware of the cultural backgrounds of our legal fact-finders, i.e. "the person or body having the legal authority to determine questions of fact in judicial proceedings" (Spiller, 2019). In our criminal jurisdiction, the fact-finder could either be a judge (or judges) or a jury. It is important to look at the cultural backgrounds of both of these groups, as this will strongly influence as how they view the world, which, unconsciously or consciously, may be detrimental to individuals from other cultures.
When you think of a judge, what do you think of? A middle-aged to elderly white male in a big white wig, peering down over a pair of specs? While this may be a stereotype, there is a reason why it is a long-held one. Up until 1976, our judiciary was composed entirely of men (Ministry of Justice, 2018), and while it has diversified substantially since, we still have a disproportionate amount of male (60%) and Pākehā (79%) judges within our system (see Gay, 2021). Further, all judges are 'recruited' from within the legal profession, a profession largely New Zealand juries are composed of a group of 12 laypeople (Juries Act 1981, s18). It is thought that having such a group of such individuals as the fact-finder provides verdicts which are reflective of the wider community and their views on justice (Law Commission, 2001, p. 55). However, from the research done leading up to the Law Commission's 2001 report, it is clear that while jury duty is meant to be a civil service in which all members of our adult community participate in equally, this is not what occurs in reality. In 1995, over half of our adult population sought to be excused from jury duty, with obligations around employment and family being amongst the most common reasons for excusals (Law Commission, 2001, p. 63).
If the same is true today, this would mean the pool of individuals who are serving on our juries is reduced to those with personal lives which provide them with the flexibility to do so.
Further, not only is there no obligation in New Zealand to ensure a juror is of the same cultural background of the defendant (Law Commission, 2001, p. 56), but there is also some suggestion that individuals from minority ethnic backgrounds are less likely to participate in jury duty (Chen, Crisis facing courts as Chinese people seek justice in NZ, 2019). Our jury pool is thus not one which is representative of the wider community.
It is therefore most likely that defendants who require an interpreter will be judged by individuals (either jury or judge) from very different cultural backgrounds to their own. It is thus of utmost importance that when we have an individual in court who does not come from a Pākehā background, that parties are conscious that additional intercultural communication awareness will likely be required.

Examples of Intercultural Miscommunication in Court
This section will review examples of intercultural communication which have occurred in the criminal courtroom, as noted in literature. It was anticipated these reviews would allow me to outline the common ways through which intercultural miscommunication could present itself in this environment. However, the incredibly varied nature of culture and the number of different cultures throughout the world makes this a near impossible task. I shall instead outline some of the common trends I found, before going on to explore this in light of New Zealand and the most common cultural groups that court interpreting is being requested for here.

International Literature
During my initial research, I noticed that the majority of literature I was coming across from common law jurisdictions was typically centred around Spanish interpreters. Given around 96% of all court interpreting requests in the United States of America are for Spanish (United States Courts, 2017) and that Spanish is the second language of one of Australia's leading scholars in this area, this is not particularly surprising.
Although requests for Spanish speaking interpreters make up only 3% of requested court  Table 1 below: Kong Moua was a man of Hmong ethnicity (a minority ethnicity of Laos), who was charged with kidnapping and raping a woman of the same ethnicity. The defence which played a part in successfully reducing his sentence by a significant amount, was based on the cultural practise of "marriage by capture" (zij poj nam) which was considered a culturally appropriate way of obtaining a bride in this culture (Bilge, 2006 New Zealand lawyers have also noticed that often, due to the cultural value of guanxi, Chinese accuseds have been found to be more likely to instruct a Chinese lawyer who is not familiar with criminal work, than a New Zealand European lawyer who may have experience in that area. This is said to be due to them feeling that with this choice there would be a lack of any cultural barriers, a pre-existing connection with the lawyer and an ability to speak with them in Mandarin or Cantonese (Crown Prosecutor Steve Symon in Superdiversity report, p. I also note that in 2019 it was noted (in the Superdiversity report at p. 41) that work was being done to implement an Equity/Diversity Handbook for judges. If such a Handbook has been completed, it does not appear to be publicly available at this time.

Ministry of Justice Guidelines
The term 'cultural' is mentioned twice in the Ministry of Justice Guidelines. The first mention is in relation to the obligation of impartiality, which notes that interpreters are expected to set aside personal cultural beliefs and avoid any unnecessary contact with any of the parties involved outside of what is appropriate for adequate preparation. The second mention is in relation to interpreters having an obligation to inform the court or tribunal immediately if something cannot be accurately interpreted because of cultural or linguistic differences. While it is encouraging to see this noted in the guidelines as something interpreters are empowered to do, it is currently limited to interpreting alone and does not account for all other potential types of intercultural miscommunication which might occur and how these are expected to be handled.

Abdula
As New Zealand's leading case on court interpreting, Abdula is also an important resource to examine in relation to this question. The case is not laden in guidance around intercultural miscommunication issues. However, it does provide at least one example of it (in relation to the defendant not feeling comfortable voicing his concerns about the first interpreter during the trial, as noted at p. 467), as well as providing useful pieces of obiter dictum relating to the obligations on judges around the court interpreting process (at p. 468). While the latter was not in relation to intercultural communication matters, but about the quality of the interpreting process generally, it is encouraging to see that case law notes this as an expectation of judges.

Section 27 Reports
Section 27 reports currently appear to be the most prominent way cultural evidence comes to the attention of the fact-finder. These reports allow for a more holistic view of a person's cultural background and context to be considered during sentencing (Hāpaitia te Oranga Tangata, Safe and Effective Justice Programme, 2018, p. 21). As these reports are primarily used for sentencing purposes, it is likely they would have a strong focus on cultural reasons which could act as potential justifications for the offending, without touching on other important cultural considerations around intercultural communication.
It is also important to consider that at present these reports are costly for the Defendant (Superdiversity report, p. 37, citing Anneke Smith "Funding cultural reports a matter of 'natural harmony' -lawyer" Radio New Zealand (online ed, 8 July 2019)) and their quality appears to vary significantly (Vaughan, 2021).

Conclusion on Current Guidance in Aotearoa New Zealand
It has been acknowledged that further cultural competencies are needed for judicial and legal This section will be looking in-depth at the guidance put in place around this area in Australia and England and Wales. I will discuss the extent to which cultural factors are mentionned, as well as some of the key points in relation to this, as noted in their guidance.

Guidance from Australia
Similarly to New Zealand, Australia is a highly diverse nation. According to 2016 census data, more than one fifth of Australians speak a language other than English at home, among the most prominent of these languages are Mandarin, Arabic, Cantonese and Vietnamese (Australian Industry and Skills Committee, 2022).
This diversity is acknowledged in the guidance Australia has around court interpreting.
Australia has a number of multicultural equality pieces of legislation, policies and benchbooks (see Judicial Council on Cultural Diversity, 2017, p. 106; and Judicial Council on Cultural Diversity, 2016). However, for our purposes, the most prominent piece of guidance is their

Recommended National Standards for Working with Interpreters in Courts and Tribunals
(Judicial Council on Cultural Diversity, 2017) ('Australian Guidelines').

The Australian Guidelines
The Australian Guidelines were formed by a committee of judges, academics and interpreting and immigration bodies (Australian Guidelines, p. V). They are presented as a guide for judges, judicial officers, lawyers and interpreters alike. In relation to culture, not only do these Guidelines provide a specific section focusing on the question of 'Language and culture' (from p. 84), but they also mention cultural aspects and considerations to be borne in mind throughout.
As well as discussing a number of the types of potential intercultural miscommunication which could arise (see pp. 81 and 84), the Guidelines also highlight several other important cultural aspects which should be at front of mind when interpreting in this setting. Three of the most important of these being: empowering the court interpreter; adequate preparation; and sharing the onus of being aware of such potential issues.

Empowering the court interpreter
Similarly to the MOJ Guidelines, the Australian Guidelines empower interpreters to seek leave from the judicial officer to raise to them that there may be a potential intercultural miscommunication issue (Standard 20.6, p. 14, also noted at p. 84). However this is framed more broadly than in the MOJ Guidelines, which are restricted to cultural elements impacting the interpreter to accurately interpret.
The permissibility in the Australian Guidelines for interpreters to do this provides further certainty and greater fairness in relation to the access to justice concerns mentionned in the introduction to this paper. However, this may be ethically challenging for court interpreters as it is not their role to provide 'advice'.
Although it would be impossible for these guidelines to give detailed standards as to when interpreters should raise these issues, in a way which covers all potential issues over all potential cultures, in all potential contextual situations. However, it could have been of assistance for the guidance to provide examples of when such interventions could be necessary and where this is being taken too far with too frequent interruptions for more minor issues which could result in irritating the judge, potentially negatively impacting a defendant's case.
Ultimately, whether such issues would be raised by interpreters remains a judgement call.
While this is not the most desirable conclusion to reach in the legal arena, it is a realistic and workable way of ensuring such potential issues are raised so that judges are aware of them and can choose how to proceed.

Adequate preparation
The Australian Guidelines also provide recommendations around ensuring all parties involved in the court interpreting process feel adequately prepared, which includes cultural considerations, such as the use of 'mentors' to be available to provide advice to those acting as interpreters with less experience in this setting (p. 57). Of particular interest to me was the Guidelines' recommended collaborative and engaged approach with ensuring the Judge, interpreter and non-English speaking party are all active participants in ensuring the interpreter is the 'right fit' for the job. This is achieved through several means, including an obligation on the judge to ensure the interpreter is appropriate and the Guidelines provide considerations for them to take into account when doing so (p. 72).
It is also a recommendation that there always be a prior meeting of the non-English speaking party and the interpreter to ensure both parties are happy with the 'fit ' (p. 67 While all these suggestions rely heavily on an individual's own judgement, they all provide good prompts for these other parties to be taking an active role in engaging and being aware of these potential issues. This is an aspect which is also encouraged of lawyers in academic literature (see Hale, 2014 at pp. 325 -326). I imagine having written guidance noting this provides some relief to interpreters in that the ethically ambiguous task of picking up on and raising potential intercultural miscommunication to the court's attention is not a responsibility they bear alone.

Conclusion on Australia's Guidance
While some aspects of the Australian Guidelines could be developed further, overall, they provide for a multitude of cultural considerations to be at front of mind and addressed in meaningful ways in the courtroom environment. Having this level of detail with official written guidance provides clarity to court interpreters (and judges and lawyers alike) who are now able to use them as a basis to demand a certain standard be upheld, as seen on the charge.org petition demanding this in Australia (change.org, 2021). I am aware that researchers at the University of New South Wales are currently reviewing the uptake and success of the Australian Guidelines. When this research becomes publicly available, It will be interesting to see how much of the guidance on intercultural communication is being applied in practise and how successful these initiatives have been.

Guidance from England and Wales
The jurisdiction of England and Wales is also highly diverse jurisdiction. According to The most detailed guidance I was able to find from England and Wales was in the Equal Treatment Bench book. Guidance designed not for the benefit of interpreters, but for the judiciary.  (2016)).

The Equal Treatment
I found this to be a particularly interesting example as it emphasizes practically how migrant communities can feel like they are not properly served by not only the legal system, but an array of different systems in their new home countries. They can feel disadvantaged in a number of ways, including employment, health and education. In time it is hoped that as more research and accommodations are made, these factors will no longer be so pronounced.
However, in the interim, it is important to recognises that they play a important role in understanding the struggles migrants face and how they can bring this distrust they have for the host countries' systems into the courtroom with them. As this is a relatively recent area of development, it is impossible to be certain whether a particular aspect of guidance would be more effective in terms of ensuring equal access to justice and further research, which will come over time as these processes are reviewed will eventually provide us with a better foundation for informed change. However, at this stage, there are a number of key priorities I believe New Zealand should be looking to develop.
Namely: Providing interpreters with a higher degree of empowerment; Providing continued education on intercultural communication and cultural competency to all members involved in the court interpreting process; and having clear, written guidelines on these issues.
In large part, a number of these developments could be based off and expanding upon some of the limited guidance we currently have in New Zealand. I shall discuss each of these suggested points of development in turn.

Providing Interpreters with a Higher Degree of Empowerment
A useful starting point when considering the empowerment of our court interpreters, is the current MOJ Guidelines. As discussed in part 2 of this paper, these guidelines make reference to interpreters needing to put aside personal cultural beliefs and avoiding any contact with the parties, outside of what is needed to prepare. This does not explicitly prevent the types of pre-appearance meetings encouraged in the Australian Guidelines (and supported as a recommendation by the Superdiversity report), however it is framed in a cautionary and negative manner, which means our interpreters are going to feel less empowered to suggest such a meeting and in turn, less confident and comfortable when commencing the interpreting job, in comparison to their Australian counterparts.
I believe we should adapt our current guidance so as to take a similar approach to that seen in Australia in relation to such pre-trial meetings, so as to ensure there are no potential cultural conflicts of the interpreter acting for the particular individual in advance of the day the interpreting is required.
As we can see in the Superdiversity report, a number of judges view section 27 reports these as a particularly useful cultural resource which they would like to see used in a more flexible way (at p. 37). I believe Section 27 reports could be developed, so as to make them more flexible, of consistent high quality and publicly funded, which could then be combined with the requirement of having such a pre-trial meeting. If these Section 27 reports were required to be written prior to and provided during this meeting, they could serve as a subject of discussion and amendment during this time. This would ensure the report accurately reflects the personal and cultural values of the non-English speaking party, that these are aligned with the interpreter's understanding, while also assisting in providing further cultural education to the judge and lawyers during this time.
While it could be argued such an approach may interfere with the independence of the report, to me, this is would be outweighed by the benefits of providing a cross-check to ensure the quality of the report and to try and avoid any potential stereotyping which may not be true of the particular individual. To try and alleviate any concerns around independence, additions or amendments noted by the individual and the interpreter should be made clear so that while the judge is aware of these changes, they can also assess the weight they wish to give these given this has come from someone other than the cultural expert who prepared the original report. While less common languages would not reap the same benefits of this system and further measures would need to be implemented for those languages, I believe this would provide a useful mechanism which would be of great assistance in increasing accurate intercultural awareness for all parties.

Clear, Written Guidelines
Our current MOJ Guidelines are seriously lacking when it comes to aspects to do with intercultural awareness and in my view, should be further developed in this regard, to a significant degree. Alongside the two aforementioned points, I also recommend that such improved guidelines include: • a multitude of different examples around cultural awareness and how intercultural miscommunication might occur (as is seen in the Australian Guidelines and the Equal Treatment Bench book); • an extension of the current ability of interpreters being allowed to raise potential intercultural miscommunications beyond language to cover the variety of ways we can see this may occur. Even if greater employment of cultural reports and cultural experts are used in criminal cases, in my view, it is still important to provide interpreters with the ability to raise still these issues if they have to; and • clear expectations of all parties, including empowering the judge to be responsible not only for the quality of interpreting (see Abdula), but for the quality of communication in all its potential iterations.
Any such guidelines should only be implemented after the consultation with both interpreters and judges to ensure they provide workable solutions for both of these groups.
Such improved guidelines would not only provide clarity to all parties in relation to the expectations associated with this aspect, but also provide empowerment to ensure these standards are being upheld, as can be seen with the change.org petition regarding the upholding of the Australian Guidelines (change.org, 2021).

Conclusion on Suggestions for Aotearoa New Zealand
I believe that the current guidance we have on this topic in New Zealand requires significant further development, but does provide useful foundations upon which we can build. In coming years it will be interesting to see whether any of the initiatives I have suggested in this part will be put into practice. As this is an undeveloped area of research, it is currently how impactful or costly these recommendations would be. However, it is clear that we are currently significantly lacking in this area in comparison to other jurisdictions and in my view, any progress or initiatives in this space would be a positive starting point upon which to build and further develop over time.

Conclusion
While this research confirmed several of my hypotheses, it also provided a number of interesting concepts and initiatives which I had not anticipated prior to commencing my research.
I came to the first part of this research with a somewhat misguided hope that I would find a clear cut and decisive list of the most common cultural misunderstanding issues which have ever appeared in court. Culture does not work like that. We live in such a diverse world, filled with a multitude of vibrant cultures, each with their own unique values and norms that it would be impossible to ever be able to boil this down in to one neat and tidy list as I had originally hoped. What Part 1 did show me however, was that the way potential miscommunication can arise was so much broader than what I had originally anticipated. The question of culture in a courtroom goes beyond what the culture of that person's home country is, but what it is for people who have left that environment and are now in New Zealand. A person's history and journey will shape the culture they belong to and consideration of the specific culture to which they belong is of primary importance.
In New Zealand we are clearly far behind a number of other countries in our relation to our official guidance around potential intercultural miscommunication in court. Examining the three key documents of the Superdiversity report, the Australian Guidelines and the Equal Treatment Bench book, while limited in scope, was instrumental in assessing whether our current guidance is up to standard and ways in which it can be improved. These resources also shone light on how these issues should not solely fall to the interpreter to raise and that it is also the responsibility of judges to be conscious of such cultural norms and behaviours. If we implement this obligation, alongside developing others, as suggested in part 4, it is hoped that this would alleviate some of the ethical discomfort interpreters may feel around this area, while still ensuring such issues are brought to the fore and that interpreters feel empowered to do so if they feel it necessary in certain circumstances.
How we choose to develop in this area is ultimately a question for our legislators. It is hoped that this paper might provide some useful suggestions on practical starting points to get the ball rolling which develop on some of our existing processes. Only time will tell how we as a nation will develop in this area. But with so little in place at present, any development is likely to be good development.