Court interpreters decline in Japan despite growing foreign defendants

The number of interpreters in Japanese courts has fallen in recent years despite growing trials of non-Japanese defendants, as the burden on them is heavy while remuneration is modest.An interpreter was used during the first hearing of the trial of a Vietnamese man indicted over violation of the immigration law at the Sapporo District Court in November."Are the charges written in the indictment correct?" the judge asked.The man listened through his earphones as the female interpreter spoke into the microphone in Vietnamese."They are all correct," he said to the woman.The criminal procedure …READ FULL ARTICLE