ABSTRACT
As a court interpreter, it is essential for you to know how cases are processed in the courts where you work, not so that you can explain procedures to the clients for whom you interpret, but to enable you to understand the context in which you are operating and anticipate misunderstandings that may arise. You may be the only interpreter involved in a given case, from police investigation and arrest through prosecution, conviction, and sentencing; or you may share the work with various interpreters who are retained at different phases. It is particularly important for you to understand the various stages of the proceedings if you come into a case in the middle. In this chapter we will look at how criminal and civil cases are processed, and then we will examine the role of the interpreter as a function of these procedures and in light of the different legal traditions presented in the preceding chapter. As stated in Chapter 3, to avoid confusion with the term “civil,” the name of the legal tradition will be capitalized and the type of law governing private actions will be written in lower case letters. According to the online Legal Encyclopedia of the Legal Information
Institute (2016, n.p.) at Cornell University Law School, the difference between criminal law and civil law is the following:
Criminal law involves prosecution by the government of a person for an act that has been classified as a crime. Civil cases, on the other hand, involve individuals and organizations seeking to resolve legal disputes. In a criminal case, the state, through a prosecutor, initiates the suit, while in a civil case the victim brings the suit. Persons convicted of a crime may be incarcerated, fined, or both. However, persons found liable in a civil case may only have to give up property or pay money, but are not incarcerated.
