New York City Transit’s much-maligned Transit Adjudication Bureau has once again come under fire from civil liberties advocates. As Pete Donohue of the Daily News reports today, the NYCLU, in a letter to NYC Transit, claims that these administrative hearings are violating the law by not providing translators to defendants who cannot speak or understand English. “Beyond being unfair, this practice is illegal,” the letter says. “Not only does the Transit Authority’s failure to provide interpreter services violate the Civil Rights Act, it violates the United States Constitution and New York Constitution.”
To bolster this argument, Times reporter Karen Zraick observed one TAB hearing in which a Spanish-speaking defendant had to resort to another person in the waiting room who could offer a bare-bones translation of the proceedings. This is not the first time the NYCLU has challenged part of the TAB process. Late last year, the group won a legal fight to open up the hearings. The MTA has so far declined to comment on this current matter.
14 comments
How does the TA keep getting away with breaking the law? There have been so many examples of it.
How is this breaking the law? English is the de facto language in both the US and New York. Under no circumstances does the state or any of its subsidiaries need to provide anything in any other language. Maybe they should learn English; it helps in the long run. I wouldn’t go to France and complain how I couldn’t understand meetings there that were done in France.
Federal law, Phil. Take a look right here.
The link refers only to federal courts. TAB is not a federal court.
The US has no official language, unlike France. And even countries with official languages are often obligated to provide government services in non-official minority languages, for examples Israel and Canada. France does not because it reveres monoculturalism; I doubt any American would endorse the century-long campaign of violence against children who spoke regional dialects instead of proper Parisian French.
^ *French. I hit submit too quickly.
There is no legal requirement for the Transit Authority to provide information in languages other than English because there is no legal requirement for the Transit Authority to provide information in English.
So the TAB should have translators to every language? Or do only some languages qualify?
(As an aside, why would someone with braces on both knees walk between cars? Legality aside, that’s something best left to the able bodied. The distance to the escalator is the same whether it’s on the train or on the platform.)
By law, the government is obligated to translate certain essential services to every language that a petitioner needs – including not just common ones like Spanish but also more obscure ones like Hausa and Khmer. This includes anything within the legal system.
With more general information, for example election information, the government can get away with just using the most common languages. But Spanish, the language under discussion here, is so common that everything should be translated.
“By law, the government is obligated to translate certain essential services to every language that a petitioner needs – including not just common ones like Spanish but also more obscure ones like Hausa and Khmer. This includes anything within the legal system.” By law? Please cite your sources.
There have been successful lawsuits about access to legal services. Look it up.
http://www.justice.gov/crt/lep.....081610.pdf
Title IV, among many constitutional principles (most notably, Due Process, the Right to Counsel, and the Confrontation Clause).
For the record, the MTA, without an admission that translators are legally required, has agreed to start providing translation services to respondents at TAB by the end of 2010.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes......-by-phone/
[…] coming under fire from civil rights groups, New York City Transit has voluntarily agreed to provide translation […]