Video Remote Interpreting

Judicial Council approves VRI pilot despite CFI’s concerns 

SAN FRANCISCO (June 28, 2016) _ The Judicial Council approved a Video Remote Interpreting (VRI) pilot project in California courts despite cautionary comments from CFI.

“We do not support the VRI pilot as currently proposed,” stated CFI President Ariel Torrone in comments submitted ahead of Friday’s Judicial Council meeting. “The parameters and design are not sufficiently defined and the proposal fails to address critical factors that should be taken into account for the pilot process to be useful and effective.”
 

Prominent among those factors are VRI’s impacts on the quality and scope of interpreting services — and thereby due process — as well as a lack of defined measures for stakeholders to evaluate the pilot program, and the built-in likelihood that the courts will proclaim the pilot a success and then refuse to purchase the equipment that made the technology work as well as it did.

A CFI analysis of VRI use previously found that courts have promoted VRI as a “solution” based on unfounded claims of its success in Fresno, in other states, and for American Sign Language (ASL) in California — where interpreters were pressured to use VRI in ways that violate the Judicial Council’s own recommended guidelines. Evidence also suggests that courts don’t make reasonable efforts to find in-person interpreters once VRI becomes an option.
 
Read CFI’s comments

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tags: *VRI, *Union, *ASL