Sign language, translation and rule of law – deaf people's experiences from encounters with the Norwegian criminal justice system

Abstract

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was ratified in Norway, June 2013. Nordic countries are generally associated with the promotion of human rights as well as disability rights. The Rule of Law Index from the World Justice Project ranks the Nordic countries among the top nations when it comes to high standards of justice (both civil and criminal justice) and rule of law. However, there are also well-known examples of grave miscarriages of justice in cases where disabled people have been involved. These cases address issues of access to justice and questions barriers to effective communication in criminal justice. Taking the situation of deaf people in Norway as a case, this study asks what barriers deaf people face when reporting a crime, being accused of a crime or being a witness in court. The methodological approach is semi-structured, open-ended interviews with deaf persons, professional sign language interpreters, judges, prosecutors, police officers and lawyers. All the informants have personal experiences from encounters between deaf people and the criminal justice system. This paper discusses this situation in terms of language and communication problems, access to justice, non-discrimination and equal recognition before the law.

Keywords:

• deaf
• disability
• sign language
• rule of law
• criminal justice

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank all the informants who gave up their time to speak to us about these matters. We also would like to thank Hild Rønning, The Norwegian Police University College, and Odd Morten Mjøen, Statped, who collaborated in this study, but who were unable to participate in writing this paper due to practical reasons. We would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers who provided us with helpful comments and suggestions during the process involved with this text. Finally, we would like to thank the Fritz Moen Research Fund who has funded our work.

Notes

1. All five Nordic countries signed the Convention in 2007. Sweden ratified it in 2007 and Denmark in 2008. Finland and Iceland have not yet ratified the Convention.

2. http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cpr.html

3. Permission to conduct our study was provided by the Norwegian Data Protection Official for Research. The study was conducted in line with principles laid down by the National Research Ethical Committee for Humanities and Social Sciences.

4. To enhance readability, in what follows we refer to the representatives of the Norwegian criminal justice system as the professional actors. This term is not unproblematic, but we choose to apply it first and foremost to distinguish these informants from the interpreters. We do not wish to imply that the latter are not professional.

5. Social services and representatives from deaf clubs.

6. The final interview was conducted with the assistance of an external sign language interpreter.

7. This claim may not simply apply to the context of crimes, but may also apply to other areas of everyday life.

8. Crime is here defined as being contravention of Norwegian criminal legislation.