Every day in America courts make decisions about people’s lives, for better or for worse. Legal and financial resources are necessary to successfully navigate a court case and bring about just rulings. Imagine for a moment that you are an immigrant with a limited ability to speak English. How will you communicate effectively to the court? What if something as precious as the custody of your child is at stake? Equal access to the criminal and civil court systems should be a basic human right. Federal law states that Individuals who have limited English proficiency have the right to equal and meaningful access to the courts, and yet many states are not in compliance. Meaningful access includes a combination of oral interpretation services and written translation of vital documents.
Recipients of federal funds must comply with federal laws. Texas criminal courts receive federal funding and must offer LEP populations equal access to the justice system through interpretation, translation and auxiliary aids such as a TDD, or Telecommunication Device for the Deaf.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Prohibits national origin discrimination by recipients of federal funds. Different treatment based on a person’s inability to speak English may be a type of national origin discrimination. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires state entities to provide American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters or auxiliary aids to ensure effective communication with D/deaf and hard of hearing individuals. Executive Order 13166 issued in 2000 further emphasizes that recipients of federal funding must provide meaningful access to LEP persons, such as the right to an interpreter, to comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and developed tools for recipients to use to offer meaningful access to LEP persons.
A study by the Brennan Center for Justice, Language Access in State Courts, found that 46% of the 35 states surveyed fail to require that interpreters be provided in all civil cases.
Follow the link below to read a compliance letter issued to states by the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division:
In Harris County, a mother is suing the courts for failure to provide an interpreter at her child custody hearings. As she bears the burden of paying for her own interpreter, her ex-fiancé repeatedly takes her to court, strategically exhausting the little money she has left to fight to keep custody of her child:
While I would hope for willful compliance from states on this issue, it may take the loss of federal funding before states bring their courtrooms into compliance. Better a state temporarily lose a source of funding than another parent and child become permanently severed due to unconstitutional court practices.
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