Portuguese Interpreter in London

The start of our campaign against outsourcing of court interpreting #MOJFWA uniteforoursociety.org/blog/entry/fig…

Sewage has caused people's deaths. 💩Yet this government is considering a deal - proposed by Thames Water's creditors - which has future sewage pollution baked into its terms and conditions. 👎Any deal which endangers us and our environment by allowing pollution for profit is NO DEAL. 🤔Perhaps the Environment Secretary should watch all three episodes of 'Dirty Business', not just 'some of it...'

Thirty organisations representing victims of violence against women and girls (VAWG) have written to the justice secretary @DavidLammy, urging him to drop plans to significantly reduce the number of jury trials. The groups said that the proposals, which will affect court cases in England and Wales, will deepen mistrust in the justice system among victims and distract from measures designed to reduce offending. The signatories, which include Rights of Women, the End Violence Against Women Coalition, Women for Refugee Women and various branches of Women’s Aid, added that they were “deeply concerned that the curtailment of jury trials risks unfair outcomes that undermine justice for everyone”. The letter, which has also been signed by Fiona Rutherford, the chief executive of the law reform charity @JUSTICEhq, said those working against violence were particularly concerned for women and girls who were “unjustly criminalised” as a result of their abuse, some of whom have faced trial themselves. Another signatory, @centreWJ the Centre for Women’s Justice, has long campaigned on the issue, saying that about 70% of women in prison or under probation supervision are known to be victims of domestic abuse. It argues that some domestic abuse victims charged with criminal offences have acted under duress or in self-defence. theguardian.com/law/2026/mar/1…

UNHCR publishes audit of Home Office asylum interviews, calls for improvements ein.org.uk/news/unhcr-pub…

@BarristerSecret @DavidLammy What? This David Lammy? 🤔

Very good article. If courts routinely fast-tracked those cases which are likely to crack 18 months later, you would cut through the backlog. The Liverpool model needs adopting everywhere. I believe Snaresbrook does something similar.

They know how to cut the backlog at Liverpool CC without trampling all over the jury system. Why aren't the MOJ interested? thetimes.com/article/35abff…

🤔You want your government to be popular? 💡Why not try doing something that's popular with the public. Most of us want to see public ownership across a range of public services. It was true at the last general election. It's true now. #publicownership

Are you a barrister? ✅ Is your life blighted by ‘waiting for the prison van’? ✅ Are you staring mournfully out of a court window waiting & weeping? ✅ Then, hoo boy, have I got a treat for you. The @barcouncil have created a REPORTING FORM for van delays. Use it 👇🏼

Hello exclusively to David Lammy! 👋 SIXTY FIVE courtrooms sit empty today. Empty. 80,000 cases in the queue. Shall we open, staff and fund them? Instead of restricting jury trial for thousands of voters? Hold rape trials in them? And if not, why not?

Want to retire into your 70s? A Government review of the state pension age could see all of us forced to work longer. Yet again targeting ordinary people to plug funding gaps, instead of the mega-rich. I've signed the petition against these plan act.38degrees.org.uk/act/pension-ag…

National Register of Public Service Interpreters published a statement: ‘As long as bookings continue to be outsourced by agencies at inadequate rates offered to qualified and regulated interpreters, the current backlog… will continue growing.’ lawgazette.co.uk/features/crimi…

Supreme Court case continues despite more than 200 interpreter errors abc.net.au/news/2026-01-1…

Dear ministers, Today amid record delays, one third of the Old Bailey’s available court rooms are shut. The 6 of 18 courtrooms not sitting - of 80 shut nationally - could have heard trials, if juries, counsel and judges were allowed in. Please invest in us don’t cut juries.

slator.ch/HuggingFaceAIT… @huggingface 🤗 releases FineTranslations, a trillion-token #multilingual 🌍 parallel dataset aimed at improving #AI #translation 🤖 performance, particularly for low-resource languages. #xl8 #t9n #LRLs

The agency that has a contract with MOJ to supply court interpreters has not paid some interpreters the correct amounts since June. Their solution to aggrieved interpreters' problems is offering a free webinar about coping with stress. Gaslighting much?

@BarristerSecret @Lizzy11268 Thanks for mentioning court interpreters in your article. Problems are caused not by us but by the MoJ outsourced contract to the big word company who pay cheap rates and often use bilinguals not qualified interpreters.

Last month, tens of thousands of people in Tunbridge Wells lost their water supply. It wasn't fully restored for 9 days. Our privatised water system is crumbling before our very eyes. Water Company CEOs are finding it harder justify their eyewatering salaries as they oversee failure after failure. The continued privatisation of water is a choice - higher bills, catastrophic water outages and environmental devastation. End privatisation of water now, starting with the collapsing Thames Water. vist.ly/4kv5k

“It would be helpful to persuade the government to step away from all this focus on curtailing juries So it’s not too late for them to change course. That would be my invitation to Keir Starmer if I were to bump into him again in the near future” @Kirsty_Brimelow, @thebarcouncil Chair in @thetimes Bar leader calls for a rethink on juries. thetimes.com/article/060107…

Morning again, David Lammy! I do wonder how long you & I must do this merry little dance. But here we go again. 75 courtrooms. Today. Sitting empty. Will you let us hold 75 rape trials in them? Instead of restricting jury trials for thousands of people? And if not, why not?

Another day of ideologically-driven idle courts.