No Bright Line Rule in Interpretation Cases

R. v. Rybak [1], a recent decision from the Ontario Court of Appeal, has clarified the Supreme Court’s ruling in R. v. Tran (1994)[2] on the interpretation of section 14 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This section of the Charter states that:

Rybak argued that any language deficiency warrants the application of the criteria, laid out in Tran, for adequate interpretation. According to the accused, a right to “continuity, precision, impartiality, competency, contemporaneity”[4] is present in all cases, even when only a few words of no consequence are missed. The judge, however, viewedTran as reading that interpreters must provide a plain English interpretation, or its equivalent.[5] The interpretation of proceedings could be different for each person, depending on their own abilities.[6] This part of the appeal was dismissed on the grounds that the trial record was silent on any problems arising from the interpretation of proceedings.[7] If accused persons want to complain that they did not understand the translator, they should do so at trial rather than after it.