The Phnom Penh Post
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May 17
2008
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Attorney-at-law and professional translator Andre Sirois harshly critiques the ECCC's translation resources in a memo recently obtained by the Post.
"One can only be extremely worried at the sorry state of legal translation, and the translation and interpretation in general, at [the] ECCC," Sirois wrote in an undated memo to Michelle Lee, the UN's top administrator at the court.
The tribunal's French-language website is "seriously damaging the image and credibility of the ECCC and its officers at least among the French speaking State Members of the UN," according to Sirois.
Some court documents are so poorly translated, he wrote, "the result is abysmal."
The court's ongoing translation problems were highlighted by defense attorney Jacques Verges in April. Verges refused to participate in the appeal hearing of his client, Khieu Samphan, because thousands of pages of court documents hadn't been translated into French.
