SV Namasoo said the government could, as a short-term measure, hire and place a pool of such interpreters in the main courts and assign them to any court when requested.

He said the courts could also allow the existing pool of interpreters to render their services through prior booking with counsels who need their services.

“The millions spent in upgrading and computerising the court system will not ensure justice unless the litigants are able to present their cases in the best possible manner,” he told FMT.

He said this in response to the Perak Bar Committee which has been informed that the courts would no longer provide such interpreters for litigants in civil suits.

“Access to justice will not only be determined by a sophisticated court infrastructure but by support staff to ensure that litigants get their day in court,” said Namasoo, who has served in the state Bar for many years, and in the Bar Council last year.

He said it was now the litigants’ responsibility to engage private interpreters at their own cost, and this was not cheap and varied between RM500 and RM1,000 a day.

Lawyer Harjeet Singh Sidhu said the shortage of interpreters, especially for Chinese dialects, was because of the low salaries in the public sector.

“I know some who resigned to work as freelance interpreters. The remuneration is much more,” he said.

He urged the government to review the interpreters’ salary schemes and improve their career paths so they would be keen to remain in the public sector.