ABSTRACT
Between the 1980s and early 2000s, Japan experienced a surge in the number of migrants, foreign residents, and visitors from overseas. This resulted in a sharp increase, peaking in 2004, in the number of non-Japanese defendants who required interpreting assistance in criminal cases. Challenges associated with ‘interpreter required cases’ (yō tsūyakunin jiken) have increasingly attracted attention in public and media discourse, especially in relation to the introduction of the lay judge system (saiban-in seido, similar to the jury system) in 2009. While media reports often seem to assume that foreign nationals without question require interpreting assistance owing to their lack of ability to communicate in Japanese, currently over 20 percent of ‘foreigner cases’ are not mediated by interpreters. Much of the public and media discourse on court interpreting has concentrated on accuracy or problems of interpreting per se, with an underlying assumption that any foreigner is to be given interpreter assistance. This resonates with the traditionally held assumption in Japanese society that Japanese citizens are fluent in the Japanese language while non-Japanese cannot achieve fluency (Gottlieb 2005; Galan 2005).
