Court Issues & Victims' Rights

Court Issues and Victims Rights
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Court Issues and Victims Rights
Part A: Issues of language barriers and availability of court-interpreters facing Court Administrators
The courts systems in the United States face many challenges on a day-to-day basis. These challenges include but are not limited to budgetary constraints, crimes of heinous nature, rights of victims and defendants and language barriers. This paper explores the issue of Language barrier from the perspective of court administrators. This challenge can easily result into serious legal concerns, particularly for non-English speakers or people of Limited English Population. The United States constitution in the fifth, sixth and fourteenth amendments provide for the right to have a court interpreter for litigants in court cases. The provision for interpreters in court proceedings also aligns with the requirements of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which formally forbids discrimination of anyone based on race, color, sex, religion or place of national origin within a setting of receiving public assistance from the government (Gaines, & Miller, 2003).
It is important to note that with appropriate effort by court administrators, the challenges of language barriers can well be limited by making use of competent interpreters while upholding the rights of non-English speakers or rather the Limited English Population (LEP). It is also vital to consider the fact that the overall American society is characterized by a great deal of cultural diversity (Legal Information Institute, 2012). This can be attributed to high levels of immigration into the United States, which is still a trend in continuance to date. As a result, the country has a high population of non-English speakers; which has in turn resulted in an ever more serious need for a diverse legal system. Court administrators have come to acknowledge this fact since language barriers stand to cause victims or defendants t...