News.Scotland.Org

October, 30

One serious concern is haunting the Scottish judiciary these days, the lack of quality translator is helping several foreign criminals to move freely. This problem is drawing more and more worries for Scottish courts amidst the growing number of such foreign national trials. It also has raised a question mark on whether in the absence of a trained translator can many such foreign nationals look for a fair trial. Expressing her views over this matter Alena Linhartova, who has interpreted in Scotland for twenty years said, the problem is very severe and in coming years we can see a flurry of appeals from foreign nationals against their convictions. The appalling quality of translators is making trials unworthy and doubtful.

In one of such foreign national cases, the trial was given up by the court due to lack of evidences and the whopping cost of interpreting the case. In same manner a series of such cases have collapsed due to lack of quality translation. It is noticed that in recent years a massive influx of foreign nationals especially nationals from Eastern Europe are settling in Scotland. This has made the Scottish courts to suffer a lot when it comes to interpret their allegations.

The poor quality of interpreters in Scottish courts is due to shortage of experienced translators making it to the court rooms. These novice translators thus find it hard to translate such cases of many foreign nationals. To curb this growing problem proper check should be done while opting for a translator. Many native speakers are also sometimes pulled off the street and made to work for several agencies and they often find themselves in court without any training said Ms Linhartova.

This growing concern has raised an alarm for the Scottish judiciary, now the need of the hour is to follow a prescribed and lethal procedure while hiring the services of a valid translator. Or else a small lack of scrutiny in the selection can result to awful consequences and would degrade the trust of the people on the Scottish Judiciary.

Scotland, Oct 30: After a series of search operation, the Edinburgh police seized dozens of knives from revellers outside pubs and clubs. Hand held metal detectors were used for the searching around 2500 people as part of the three-week long campaign.

In total 36 weapons were seized on the spot, shedding light on the fact that one among 70 revellers in the town were carrying knife with them. The search operation was carried out as part of the Safer Scotland Campaign aimed at targeting violent crime. Apart from knives 70 bladed weapons including an axe, a cleaver and a scythe were also handed over in the Lothians police station. In 2006, 455 people were arrested in connection with weapons carrying in Lothian and Borders.

Inspector Neil Phillip, the Lothian and Borders liaison officer for the Safer Scotland campaign, while commenting on this said: ” The priority of this campaign was to get as many weapons as possible out of circulation and so we worked with bouncers at nightclubs in the city centre to set up searches there, as well as checking pubs and clubs across the area.”

The seized weapons along with 34 other weapons including hammers, bats and metal poles were sent to be destroyed.

Mike Bridgman, councillor of Craigmillar said: “The knife culture in Edinburgh was completely out of order. It is madness that in this society some people think it is all right to go around carrying knives and I would hope that we can sweep away that belief and eradicate that culture of knife crime. I fully support the police effort in this.”

Iain Whyte, Councillor and the chairman of the Lothian and Border Police Board hailed the result of the search operation. He further added that: “It is very encouraging to hear that so many knives were handed over to the police, and that a number of knives were taken from people at the point when they could have posed a real threat to others.”

The success of this search hunt is the recognition to the hard work of the Police officers across Scotland and it will help in restricting the knife culture in Edinburgh and the surrounding areas. The next stage of the Safer Scotland campaign will give focus on Alcohol Fuelled Violence that will begin from December.