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A NDP private member’s bill – Bill C-232 – passed the House of Commons last week. The legislation would require that all future Supreme Court justices be bilingual. Specifically, the act says that:

“Section 5 of the Supreme Court Act is renumbered as subsection 5(1) and is amended by adding the following:

(2) In addition, any person referred to in subsection (1) may be appointed a judge who understands French and English without the assistance of an interpreter.”

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BRUSSELS (Reuters Life!) – It’s a high-pressure job that keeps the European Union functioning, but you seldom see the people doing it — you only ever hear them.

Interpreters are the link that allows 27 countries to talk to one another, conveying the complexities of EU affairs into 23 official languages and preventing the European Union enterprise descending into Tower-of-Babel-like confusion.

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Some court interpreters in California who specialize in Mandarin, Russian and Armenian say they are getting squeezed out of long-held jobs because of a certification process they believe is flawed.

Many say they have taken the state-mandated written and oral tests several times but were unable to pass despite having demonstrated fluency and skill. The issue has created professional problems for some, and it could have broader implications as the courts’ ability to find qualified interpreters becomes further strained.

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When Florida legislators passed a law four years ago requiring court interpreters to be certified, advocates hailed it as a huge step for non-English speakers to access justice in the courtroom.

But court and independent interpreters, as well as advocates, now say the law only put in place a mechanism for the certification of interpreters with no guarantee circuit courts will use them.

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Research has demonstrated that appropriate use of interpreters in clinical encounters improves outcomes and decreases adverse events. This article reviews both the medical reasons for working with trained medical interpreters and the related laws, and offers practical tips for working effectively with interpreters.

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When Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi delivered his notorious 96-minute speech before the UN General Assembly last autumn, no one may have been more aware of each passing minute than his personal translator, Fouad Zlitni, whom he had brought along for the occasion.

Nearly three-quarters of the way into Qaddafi’s address, Zlitni collapsed, undone by the effort of translating the Libyan leader’s rambling, at times angry, speech from Arabic into English for nearly 75 minutes straight.

Hossam Fahr, the Egyptian-born head of the UN’s interpretation service, says Qaddafi’s translator went far beyond the normal limits of what an interpreter can reasonably be expected to do.

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Dr. Barton Giessel presses on spots down Maria del Rosario Gomez’s back while talking into the speaker of a cordless telephone to ask where it hurts.

A man’s voice spills out from the phone, posing the question to Gomez in Spanish and then relaying her response in English.

“The pain goes to the left breast,” the interpreter on the phone says, as if he were the patient. After her consultation ends, Gomez calls the entire exam a blessing.

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Also, the Appropriations Committee restored $1.8 million in funding for interpreters for non-English speaking Medicaid patients and $5.9 million for non-emergency patient transportation. The 2-1-1 phone line Husky patients call to get their questions answered or to apply through also was saved from being turned off as the Rell’s budget proposed.

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Serbia’s condition for taking part in the gathering was for the Kosovo Albanian delegation to be represented as Kosovo-UNMIK. The informal event was co-organized by Slovenia and Croatia.

According to the daily, Belgrade has yet to receive the translation of EU legal documents that it officials requested from Zagreb in January.

Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor gave the translations to all prime ministers who attended the conference on Saturday, adding that “Serbia will get them as well, once it asks for them officially”.

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PODGORICA — Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor gave her Montenegrin counterpart Milo Đukanović a Croatian translation of European laws.

According to media in Slovenia, Kosor said that giving Đukanović the translation was a “sign of friendship” between Croatia and Montenegro.

Croatia earlier translated about 100,000 pages of European regulations, which costs more than EUR 8mn.

This gesture was commended by EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele, who said that Croatia is showing its readiness to help its neighbors in their European integrations.