A “multitude” of cases involving foreign nationals are being postponed on a daily basis because there are no foreign language interpreters.

And now the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court is holding an inquiry to determine who is liable for the lack of interpreters in courts in Gauteng.

The Justice Department’s Johannesburg Cluster manager‚ Mangope Motaung‚ who was called to testify in the inquiry on Wednesday‚ told the court that the recruitment of foreign language interpreters was not done to the “letter“.

“This is an unfortunate situation.

“The problem with the current system [of recruitment] is that some of the foreign language interpreters have not been trained for the services they provide because we do not have the expertise to train them in language proficiency. We don’t know that the people we recruit have the necessary skills [to interpret]‚” Motaung said.

He said the Department of Justice’s administration has to accept the blame for the challenges relating to foreign language interpreters.

According to a court official who did not want to be named for fear of victimisation‚ the department terminated contracts of foreign language interpreters as a “cost cutting” measure in March.

He said when the department terminated the contracts‚ it did not make any plans in regard to dealing with cases that need foreign language interpreters‚ a sentiment Motaung shared in his testimony.

“When the contracts were terminated‚ a meeting should have been called to plan how to circumvent the problem‚” Motaung said.

“A multitude of cases are being postponed everyday. There are currently no interpreters. Those accused persons are sitting and rotting in jail because there is no one to interpret in their languages. I can’t help because I don’t understand Igbo (a Nigerian language)‚” the official said.

Magistrate Hein Louw said he was holding the inquiry on behalf of all other magistrates to resolve the problems the courts were currently facing regarding the shortage of foreign language interpreters.