The Police Statements: Language, Interpretation, and Procedural Justice
Because of serious flaws in how police officers interviewed Parti Liyani, the police statements taken from her cannot be treated as reliable evidence from which to infer guilt. This article examines the problems arising from the absence of a Bahasa Indonesia-speaking interpreter when four out of the five police statements were taken. Parti was interrogated and then had statements read back to her in a mix of English and Malay, which differs from Indonesian in significant ways. The confusion inherent in this process was made worse because Parti was not allowed to view the alleged stolen items until just days before the trial began; instead, she was questioned on over 100 items based on first verbal descriptions, then blurry black-and-white pictures, then finally coloured copies of photographs. It is also questionable that a single police officer had to carry out multiple tasks of questioning and interpreting at the same time, while lacking formal certification in interpretation.
Summary of Events
The police took five statements from Parti Liyani in total: for four of them, Parti was interviewed without an interpreter who speaks Bahasa Indonesia (Parti’s native language). The Investigating Officer who took those four statements (on 3 December 2016, 4 December 2016, 8 December 2016 and 19 December 2016) was IO Amirudin Bin Nordin (“IO Amir”). During the statement-taking, IO Amir carried out both the questioning as well as translating and interpreting, in a mix of English and Malay. For at least one statement—the one taken on 4 December 2016—Assistant Superintendent Tang Ru Long was also present.
For the first statement, P32, Parti was not given any photographs or the physical items to view: she was questioned based on verbal descriptions of the items she was accused of stealing. For P33, taken at 1.44am in the morning, Parti was provided with unclear, black-and-white photocopies of photographs of the items. For P31, on 29 May 2017, ASP Lim Hui Shan finally hired an interpreter, who spoke a mix of Malay and Bahasa Indonesia. In Court, ASP Lim testified that during the four-hour-long interview—in which Parti was taken through 119 photographs spread over 29 pages—she and the interpreter quickly went through around 70 questions and their answers. ASP Lim also conceded that there were errors in the police statement that she did not catch.
At the State Courts, the Prosecutors adduced the police statements P31, P32 and P33 as evidence, in an attempt to impeach Parti’s credibility.
On 4 November 2020, K Shanmugam, Minister for Home Affairs and Law, issued a Ministerial Statement in Parliament, in which he said that the police officer “believed in good faith that Ms Liyani understood Malay”. The statement also said that “[t]he recorder asked Ms Liyani in Malay whether she wished to give her statement in Malay or in Bahasa Indonesia. She chose to speak in Malay.” The statement further indicates that “[t]here is no significant difference between Malay and Bahasa Indonesia in the asking of that question”, and that Parti “did not ask for an interpreter during the recording of her statements”.
Parti denies that she was asked by the police IO if she wanted to have a Bahasa Indonesia interpreter: there is no logical reason for Parti to have refused this if it was offered, considering the seriousness of the event. During Parti’s cross-examination by the Prosecutor at the State Court, Parti had stated that she “did not feel comfortable” about the IO speaking in Malay, but the “IO never given me any choice”. The Prosecutor then asked, “And you did not ask for a Bahasa Indonesia interpreter, did you?” To which Parti replied: “I did not know that I can request for Bahasa Indonesia interpreter in the lock-up.” The Prosecutor then tried to assert that since Parti has worked in Singapore for around 20 years, she would have “picked up or become comfortable with Bahasa Melayu”. Parti then said: “Yes, a little. Not all of them I understand. There is a big gap between Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Melayu.” The Prosecutor then proceeded to ask: “When IO asked you if you needed an interpreter, you declined, isn’t it?” Parti refuted this, and replied: “It is not true, he never gave me or mentioned---he never asked me whether I need or I want an interpreter.”
The police took five statements from Parti Liyani in total: for four of them, Parti was interviewed without an interpreter who speaks Bahasa Indonesia (Parti’s native language). The Investigating Officer who took those four statements (on 3 December 2016, 4 December 2016, 8 December 2016 and 19 December 2016) was IO Amirudin Bin Nordin (“IO Amir”). During the statement-taking, IO Amir carried out both the questioning as well as translating and interpreting, in a mix of English and Malay. For at least one statement—the one taken on 4 December 2016—Assistant Superintendent Tang Ru Long was also present.
For the first statement, P32, Parti was not given any photographs or the physical items to view: she was questioned based on verbal descriptions of the items she was accused of stealing. For P33, taken at 1.44am in the morning, Parti was provided with unclear, black-and-white photocopies of photographs of the items. For P31, on 29 May 2017, ASP Lim Hui Shan finally hired an interpreter, who spoke a mix of Malay and Bahasa Indonesia. In Court, ASP Lim testified that during the four-hour-long interview—in which Parti was taken through 119 photographs spread over 29 pages—she and the interpreter quickly went through around 70 questions and their answers. ASP Lim also conceded that there were errors in the police statement that she did not catch.
At the State Courts, the Prosecutors adduced the police statements P31, P32 and P33 as evidence, in an attempt to impeach Parti’s credibility.
On 4 November 2020, K Shanmugam, Minister for Home Affairs and Law, issued a Ministerial Statement in Parliament, in which he said that the police officer “believed in good faith that Ms Liyani understood Malay”. The statement also said that “[t]he recorder asked Ms Liyani in Malay whether she wished to give her statement in Malay or in Bahasa Indonesia. She chose to speak in Malay.” The statement further indicates that “[t]here is no significant difference between Malay and Bahasa Indonesia in the asking of that question”, and that Parti “did not ask for an interpreter during the recording of her statements”.
Parti denies that she was asked by the police IO if she wanted to have a Bahasa Indonesia interpreter: there is no logical reason for Parti to have refused this if it was offered, considering the seriousness of the event. During Parti’s cross-examination by the Prosecutor at the State Court, Parti had stated that she “did not feel comfortable” about the IO speaking in Malay, but the “IO never given me any choice”. The Prosecutor then asked, “And you did not ask for a Bahasa Indonesia interpreter, did you?” To which Parti replied: “I did not know that I can request for Bahasa Indonesia interpreter in the lock-up.” The Prosecutor then tried to assert that since Parti has worked in Singapore for around 20 years, she would have “picked up or become comfortable with Bahasa Melayu”. Parti then said: “Yes, a little. Not all of them I understand. There is a big gap between Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Melayu.” The Prosecutor then proceeded to ask: “When IO asked you if you needed an interpreter, you declined, isn’t it?” Parti refuted this, and replied: “It is not true, he never gave me or mentioned---he never asked me whether I need or I want an interpreter.”
At the State Court, IO Amir admitted that there is a difference between Bahasa Melayu and Bahasa Indonesia. He testified that Parti was speaking to him in Bahasa Indonesia. When Defence Counsel asked IO Amir: “So you could have interpreted some of the Bahasa Indonesia words in a different way, correct? Yes or no?” IO Amir said, “Yes.”
Malay and Bahasa Indonesia: Close Languages & “False Friends”
Malay and Bahasa Indonesia (BI) are “close languages”, but they are different languages. Importantly, similar words or expressions can have meanings that differ in significant ways for the purpose of the police statements. For instance, there are “false friends” or homonyms (expressions or words with the same spelling and sound, but different meanings in each language), of which a Malay speaker in Singapore may not be aware. These will affect a speaker’s or listener’s understanding of actions or locations being described (is the object placed near a box or in the box?). This can affect both ordinary language as well as the specialised legal language which may be especially relevant to a police interview.
In terms of background, Malay and BI are part of the family of Austronesian languages, and they “both derive from Bahasa Melayu”, “the lingua franca of Southeast Asia since at least the 7th century until 13th century”.[1] However, they have evolved differently: “European words were borrowed through English in Malaysia and through Dutch in Indonesia”.[2] It is further noted that “[o]riginal Malay vocabulary shows striking semantic differences. Derivational affixation is formally the same but is not parallel in distribution and/or meaning”.[3] An article on the differences between Indonesian and Malay[4] highlights that while the two languages stem from the same source and are “mutually intelligible”, there nonetheless are “significant differences in vocabulary and pronunciation”.
Ranaivo-Malancon, citing Asmah Haji Omar, states that the two languages have a lexical similarity of around 90%: this is equivalent to the lexical similarity between French-Italian, and Spanish-Portugese, which stands at 89%. According to Farah (a pseudonym), a Malay Studies researcher who holds a postgraduate diploma specializing in the teaching of Malay language from Singapore’s National Institute of Education, this is a significant difference: everyone agrees that a French speaker, for example, would need an interpreter if interviewed by an Italian policeman, and vice versa. Additionally, this 10% difference refers to the whole language: “it doesn’t account for frequency of use or language register”, points out Dr Paul Thomas, an affiliate researcher in Indonesian Studies and Translation Studies Monash University, and an NAATI-accredited Indonesian-English translator who previously lived and worked in Singapore. According to Dr Thomas, “This was a constant problem for me when I was teaching Malaysians and Singaporeans. It was difficult to know when to accept a Malay word in Indonesian and when to reject it.” Farah affirms this, stating that “because the words [in Malay and BI] are similar looking, sometimes it is not clear which context is accurate”.
In fact, an entire module taught at the Singapore University of Social Sciences is dedicated to the study of the difference between BI and Malay. A renowned Malaysian children’s television show, ‘Upin Ipin’, when aired in Indonesia, is either dubbed into Bahasa Indonesia or has BI subtitles.[5] As stated by Chen and Fitzpatrick: “Ask anyone from Indonesia or Malaysia if they speak the same language as the other country and you’re most likely to get a resounding “no!” The authors further note, “Even when Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Melayu do use the same words, oftentimes they have very different meanings. ‘Tandas’ in Indonesian means to accentuate. In Malay it means toilet. ‘Percuma’ in Malay means free, while in Indonesia it means useless.”
Farah elaborates on this concept of “false friends”, basically “words with a similar look or sound but significantly different meanings”. For example, the word “belanja” in Malay (especially in widespread colloquial usage in Singapore) can mean “to treat or giving something for free”, whereas in Indonesian, it means “to shop”. As Farah states: “Clearly, from this one example alone, we can see the disparity in outcome in the understanding of the word between a Singaporean and an Indonesian, and why context and nuance might matter greatly.”
Significant “false friends”: Near vs In
For police statement marked P33, Parti was woken at 1.44am and interviewed by IO Amir. The statement was recorded in English and read to her in Malay: she was asked 108 questions, and was only given blurry, black-and-white photocopies of the alleged stolen items to refer to. In the statement, Parti is asked if she put the two DVD players in one of the three boxes. The question and answer, in English, is as follows:
Q14) Did you put the two DVD players in one of the three boxes?
A14) Yes. While Robin was putting in the clothes into the boxes, I just placed the two DVD players into one of the boxes.
In Court, when Parti was cross-examined by the Prosecutor, Tan Yanying, Parti explained that she took the Pioneer DVD player and placed it near one of the boxes. She testified that she did not personally place the DVD player into the box. The Prosecutor then sought to impeach Parti’s credibility by adducing the police statement and referring to the question and answer highlighted above:
Malay and Bahasa Indonesia: Close Languages & “False Friends”
Malay and Bahasa Indonesia (BI) are “close languages”, but they are different languages. Importantly, similar words or expressions can have meanings that differ in significant ways for the purpose of the police statements. For instance, there are “false friends” or homonyms (expressions or words with the same spelling and sound, but different meanings in each language), of which a Malay speaker in Singapore may not be aware. These will affect a speaker’s or listener’s understanding of actions or locations being described (is the object placed near a box or in the box?). This can affect both ordinary language as well as the specialised legal language which may be especially relevant to a police interview.
In terms of background, Malay and BI are part of the family of Austronesian languages, and they “both derive from Bahasa Melayu”, “the lingua franca of Southeast Asia since at least the 7th century until 13th century”.[1] However, they have evolved differently: “European words were borrowed through English in Malaysia and through Dutch in Indonesia”.[2] It is further noted that “[o]riginal Malay vocabulary shows striking semantic differences. Derivational affixation is formally the same but is not parallel in distribution and/or meaning”.[3] An article on the differences between Indonesian and Malay[4] highlights that while the two languages stem from the same source and are “mutually intelligible”, there nonetheless are “significant differences in vocabulary and pronunciation”.
Ranaivo-Malancon, citing Asmah Haji Omar, states that the two languages have a lexical similarity of around 90%: this is equivalent to the lexical similarity between French-Italian, and Spanish-Portugese, which stands at 89%. According to Farah (a pseudonym), a Malay Studies researcher who holds a postgraduate diploma specializing in the teaching of Malay language from Singapore’s National Institute of Education, this is a significant difference: everyone agrees that a French speaker, for example, would need an interpreter if interviewed by an Italian policeman, and vice versa. Additionally, this 10% difference refers to the whole language: “it doesn’t account for frequency of use or language register”, points out Dr Paul Thomas, an affiliate researcher in Indonesian Studies and Translation Studies Monash University, and an NAATI-accredited Indonesian-English translator who previously lived and worked in Singapore. According to Dr Thomas, “This was a constant problem for me when I was teaching Malaysians and Singaporeans. It was difficult to know when to accept a Malay word in Indonesian and when to reject it.” Farah affirms this, stating that “because the words [in Malay and BI] are similar looking, sometimes it is not clear which context is accurate”.
In fact, an entire module taught at the Singapore University of Social Sciences is dedicated to the study of the difference between BI and Malay. A renowned Malaysian children’s television show, ‘Upin Ipin’, when aired in Indonesia, is either dubbed into Bahasa Indonesia or has BI subtitles.[5] As stated by Chen and Fitzpatrick: “Ask anyone from Indonesia or Malaysia if they speak the same language as the other country and you’re most likely to get a resounding “no!” The authors further note, “Even when Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Melayu do use the same words, oftentimes they have very different meanings. ‘Tandas’ in Indonesian means to accentuate. In Malay it means toilet. ‘Percuma’ in Malay means free, while in Indonesia it means useless.”
Farah elaborates on this concept of “false friends”, basically “words with a similar look or sound but significantly different meanings”. For example, the word “belanja” in Malay (especially in widespread colloquial usage in Singapore) can mean “to treat or giving something for free”, whereas in Indonesian, it means “to shop”. As Farah states: “Clearly, from this one example alone, we can see the disparity in outcome in the understanding of the word between a Singaporean and an Indonesian, and why context and nuance might matter greatly.”
Significant “false friends”: Near vs In
For police statement marked P33, Parti was woken at 1.44am and interviewed by IO Amir. The statement was recorded in English and read to her in Malay: she was asked 108 questions, and was only given blurry, black-and-white photocopies of the alleged stolen items to refer to. In the statement, Parti is asked if she put the two DVD players in one of the three boxes. The question and answer, in English, is as follows:
Q14) Did you put the two DVD players in one of the three boxes?
A14) Yes. While Robin was putting in the clothes into the boxes, I just placed the two DVD players into one of the boxes.
In Court, when Parti was cross-examined by the Prosecutor, Tan Yanying, Parti explained that she took the Pioneer DVD player and placed it near one of the boxes. She testified that she did not personally place the DVD player into the box. The Prosecutor then sought to impeach Parti’s credibility by adducing the police statement and referring to the question and answer highlighted above:
While Parti clarified in Court that she had said she put the DVD player near the box, the Prosecutor put it to Parti that she had said she put it in the box. Yet this discrepancy can be explained by the linguistic confusion arising from wrongly treating BI and Malay as interchangeable. In BI, the word “dekat” means “near”. In colloquial Malay, it can be interpreted as “in”, particularly when the word is used colloquially or informally in conversation—an understanding which a native Indonesian speaker would not share.
According to Dr Thomas, “colloquial or everyday Malay in Singapore is far more commonly used than formal Malay”, with the latter found primarily in government forms, school texts or literature. Colloquial Malay, meanwhile, is “far more distant from either formal Indonesian or colloquial Indonesian than formal Malay”. While Parti could have adapted to colloquial Malay “for very simple tasks such as shopping”, the “ability to express herself fully would have been severely limited unless she had strong friendships over time with Singaporean Malays”. (Note: Parti has not worked for any Singaporean Malay families while in Singapore.) Dr Thomas adds that “the confusion that arises from communication in Indonesian and Malay is not because they are completely different languages but that they are so closely related you never really know when you have understood and when you haven’t. There is also a lot dependent on the personal experiences of anyone speaker in regards to their mutual intelligibility.”
Maria (a pseudonym), a BI court interpreter with over a decade’s worth of experience, explains that “language is a culture”. The vocabulary of Bahasa Indonesia is made up of or ‘loaned from’ different languages—Chinese, Portugese, Sanskrit and Dutch, amongst others; there are around 750 ethnic languages in Indonesia, of which just one is Malay, which is viewed as a lot more limited and simple compared to BI.
Farah emphasizes that our “social environment affects our understanding of language”: we veer towards comfortable and familiar understandings of language, those most frequently used among our social circles. It would not be instinctive, Farah posits, for a Singaporean Malay to consider, “oh, perhaps this word has two meanings”, especially during a long police interview involving so many items; “nuances of language” will not be foremost on their mind. Additionally, Farah notes from her experience as an Appropriate Adult sitting in on police interviews with accused persons, many Singaporean Malays, including police officers, have only a relatively basic command of Malay; she has noted how many police officers struggle to translate formal or legal terms even into Malay, much less into BI, with its differing legal vocabulary.
Police Interrogations: Legalese, Misunderstandings & Their Consequences
Legal terminology and police/court procedures are complex and confounding for most persons. Even proficient speakers of a language may struggle. Dr Thomas says for Indonesians, many “confusing phrases” remain when it comes to Malay, and understanding also relies on “the register being used”. With “a legal register, the language difference is likely to be far greater because the legal system of Singapore is based on the British system and Indonesia’s legal system is strongly influenced by European/Dutch traditions”. This affects “both grammar and vocabulary and is significant at the professional and basic or layman’s levels”.
According to Maria, the court interpreter, while informally conversing in Malay with a BI speaker may be acceptable, for serious and consequential settings, particularly where legal terms are used, it is crucial to have an interpreter. As the possible consequences of a statement are grave, Maria states that an interpreter must ensure that the interviewee fully understands every single question and its context, as well as the implications of the interview and what he/she says. Maria is attuned to the interviewee’s body language—she can sense when (understandably often) the interviewee is nervous or scared, and can also pick up if they have misunderstood the question or given an answer which is itself misunderstood.
In Nino-Murcia and Roth’s piece on language asymmetry and police interrogations, the authors point out that “the lack of language symmetry impedes understanding and affects the production of coherent answers”. The authors further note that proficiency in a language at “novice learner level”, is “not adequate for legal language”. In police interrogations, “asymmetrical power relations” between police officers and accused persons, “increase the constraints speakers feel and affect communicative effectiveness”. As Dr Thomas notes, “If Parti was under stress during the interview, this would have added to her difficulty of understanding the Malay dialect or language register used. She may have needed time to self-translate into her own dialect to fully comprehend what was being said, assuming she was familiar enough with the language to do this.” He further states:
“If the authorities wanted to assure the flow of reliable information from Parti, and to be assured she was following the process and details they were presenting to her, they needed to make use of a professional Indonesian language interpreter. Any other solution would have added to the language burden on Parti. In her efforts to cooperate she could have easily exceeded her language ability in the circumstances and unintentionally misled those interviewing her that she was understanding more than she was.”
Interrogator, Translator and Interpreter?
In the case of Parti Liyani, IO Amir simultaneously conducted the interview and played the role of translator and interpreter. According to Maria, who is a certified interpreter, a police officer—focused on the goal of getting the questions answered—may not be doing their best to ensure that the interviewee fully understands the questions. Whereas Maria, who is trained to do so, will ensure that the interviewee clearly understands each question, rephrasing it if necessary to reach this goal. The IO, Maria points out, is not qualified to be a translator or interpreter and did not study Parti’s native language. Professional interpreters must seek formal accreditation for their work; how can police officers take on dual roles as interrogators and interpreters without such qualifications?
In Farah’s view, the fact that a police officer played multiple roles as interrogator, translator, and interpreter, all at the same time, for interviews that lasted so long and involved so many items, was a “recipe for disaster”. First, “translation in itself is cognitively taxing”; and then, “interpretation is even more cognitively taxing, because it is simultaneous—this fact has clearly been established in the literature”.[6] The officer would have to grapple with a “limited cognitive bandwidth”, trying to take a statement and establish the facts of the case, yet also interpret and clarify items, sometimes multiple times, perhaps also consider how to rephrase a question if it’s not understood, etc.
During the statement-taking for P33, taken on 4 December at 1.44am—with 108 questions asked over 4 hours—ASP Tang Ru Long was present, along with IO Amir. This means IO Amir would have been toggling between ASP Tang’s questions and clarifications in English, translating them into Malay for Parti, listening to Parti’s BI responses, interpreting them into Malay, and then translating them into English for ASP Tang. As Farah points out, police officers generally don’t write everything that is being said verbatim: they also summarize and paraphrase. With so many difficult tasks to juggle at the same time, this creates ample room for error.
Conclusion
Nino-Murcia and Roth’s article concludes that “language proficiency of non-native defendants/detainees is highly relevant to the administration of justice”. Legal institutions, which “perform their activities mostly in and through language exchanges”, must be cognizant of “potential interactional trouble spots”, and take steps to remedy them. Mutual understanding is crucial, because there are fateful and enduring effects, with implications for procedural justice.
In Justice Chan Seng Onn’s judgement, he stated that Malay and BI “must be assumed to be sufficiently different such that it can create reasonable doubt as to the complete accuracy of the statement recording in order to avoid unfair prejudice to the accused”. He added that this is “especially pertinent in the light of the voluminous quantity of items in which Parti was questioned on in specific detail”. Justice Chan also noted that Parti was not questioned with reference to the actual physical items, and “[w]here the statements recorded are highly predicated on their details, the accuracy and precision of language translated to Parti would have been of paramount importance in the statement recording process”.
References
[1] Bali Ranaivo-Malancon, “Automatic Identification of Close Languages—Case study: Malay and Indonesian”, ECTI Transactions on Computer and Information Technology 2, no.2 (November 2006): 127.
[2] Hein Steinhauer, “Colonial History and Language Policy in Insular Southeast Asia and Madagascar”, in The Austronesian Languages of Asia and Madagascar, eds. Alexander Adelaar and Nikolaus Himmelmann (London: Routledge, 2005), 70-71.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Michael Chen and Dewi Fitzpatrick, “What are the Basic Differences Between Indonesian and Malay?”, Jala Translate, 28 May 2018, https://medium.com/not-lost-in-translation-a-guide-by-jala/what-are-the-basic-differences-between-indonesian-and-malay-e5a7f28930ac.
[5] For an example of an episode of Upin Ipin which was aired on an Indonesian television channel and subtitled in Bahasa Indonesia, refer to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y0bCp31Dho&t=302s.
[6] Adolfo M. García, Edinson Muñoz, and Boris Kogan, “Taxing the Bilingual Mind: Effects of Simultaneous Interpreting Experience on Verbal and Executive Mechanisms”, Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 23 (2020):729-39.
According to Dr Thomas, “colloquial or everyday Malay in Singapore is far more commonly used than formal Malay”, with the latter found primarily in government forms, school texts or literature. Colloquial Malay, meanwhile, is “far more distant from either formal Indonesian or colloquial Indonesian than formal Malay”. While Parti could have adapted to colloquial Malay “for very simple tasks such as shopping”, the “ability to express herself fully would have been severely limited unless she had strong friendships over time with Singaporean Malays”. (Note: Parti has not worked for any Singaporean Malay families while in Singapore.) Dr Thomas adds that “the confusion that arises from communication in Indonesian and Malay is not because they are completely different languages but that they are so closely related you never really know when you have understood and when you haven’t. There is also a lot dependent on the personal experiences of anyone speaker in regards to their mutual intelligibility.”
Maria (a pseudonym), a BI court interpreter with over a decade’s worth of experience, explains that “language is a culture”. The vocabulary of Bahasa Indonesia is made up of or ‘loaned from’ different languages—Chinese, Portugese, Sanskrit and Dutch, amongst others; there are around 750 ethnic languages in Indonesia, of which just one is Malay, which is viewed as a lot more limited and simple compared to BI.
Farah emphasizes that our “social environment affects our understanding of language”: we veer towards comfortable and familiar understandings of language, those most frequently used among our social circles. It would not be instinctive, Farah posits, for a Singaporean Malay to consider, “oh, perhaps this word has two meanings”, especially during a long police interview involving so many items; “nuances of language” will not be foremost on their mind. Additionally, Farah notes from her experience as an Appropriate Adult sitting in on police interviews with accused persons, many Singaporean Malays, including police officers, have only a relatively basic command of Malay; she has noted how many police officers struggle to translate formal or legal terms even into Malay, much less into BI, with its differing legal vocabulary.
Police Interrogations: Legalese, Misunderstandings & Their Consequences
Legal terminology and police/court procedures are complex and confounding for most persons. Even proficient speakers of a language may struggle. Dr Thomas says for Indonesians, many “confusing phrases” remain when it comes to Malay, and understanding also relies on “the register being used”. With “a legal register, the language difference is likely to be far greater because the legal system of Singapore is based on the British system and Indonesia’s legal system is strongly influenced by European/Dutch traditions”. This affects “both grammar and vocabulary and is significant at the professional and basic or layman’s levels”.
According to Maria, the court interpreter, while informally conversing in Malay with a BI speaker may be acceptable, for serious and consequential settings, particularly where legal terms are used, it is crucial to have an interpreter. As the possible consequences of a statement are grave, Maria states that an interpreter must ensure that the interviewee fully understands every single question and its context, as well as the implications of the interview and what he/she says. Maria is attuned to the interviewee’s body language—she can sense when (understandably often) the interviewee is nervous or scared, and can also pick up if they have misunderstood the question or given an answer which is itself misunderstood.
In Nino-Murcia and Roth’s piece on language asymmetry and police interrogations, the authors point out that “the lack of language symmetry impedes understanding and affects the production of coherent answers”. The authors further note that proficiency in a language at “novice learner level”, is “not adequate for legal language”. In police interrogations, “asymmetrical power relations” between police officers and accused persons, “increase the constraints speakers feel and affect communicative effectiveness”. As Dr Thomas notes, “If Parti was under stress during the interview, this would have added to her difficulty of understanding the Malay dialect or language register used. She may have needed time to self-translate into her own dialect to fully comprehend what was being said, assuming she was familiar enough with the language to do this.” He further states:
“If the authorities wanted to assure the flow of reliable information from Parti, and to be assured she was following the process and details they were presenting to her, they needed to make use of a professional Indonesian language interpreter. Any other solution would have added to the language burden on Parti. In her efforts to cooperate she could have easily exceeded her language ability in the circumstances and unintentionally misled those interviewing her that she was understanding more than she was.”
Interrogator, Translator and Interpreter?
In the case of Parti Liyani, IO Amir simultaneously conducted the interview and played the role of translator and interpreter. According to Maria, who is a certified interpreter, a police officer—focused on the goal of getting the questions answered—may not be doing their best to ensure that the interviewee fully understands the questions. Whereas Maria, who is trained to do so, will ensure that the interviewee clearly understands each question, rephrasing it if necessary to reach this goal. The IO, Maria points out, is not qualified to be a translator or interpreter and did not study Parti’s native language. Professional interpreters must seek formal accreditation for their work; how can police officers take on dual roles as interrogators and interpreters without such qualifications?
In Farah’s view, the fact that a police officer played multiple roles as interrogator, translator, and interpreter, all at the same time, for interviews that lasted so long and involved so many items, was a “recipe for disaster”. First, “translation in itself is cognitively taxing”; and then, “interpretation is even more cognitively taxing, because it is simultaneous—this fact has clearly been established in the literature”.[6] The officer would have to grapple with a “limited cognitive bandwidth”, trying to take a statement and establish the facts of the case, yet also interpret and clarify items, sometimes multiple times, perhaps also consider how to rephrase a question if it’s not understood, etc.
During the statement-taking for P33, taken on 4 December at 1.44am—with 108 questions asked over 4 hours—ASP Tang Ru Long was present, along with IO Amir. This means IO Amir would have been toggling between ASP Tang’s questions and clarifications in English, translating them into Malay for Parti, listening to Parti’s BI responses, interpreting them into Malay, and then translating them into English for ASP Tang. As Farah points out, police officers generally don’t write everything that is being said verbatim: they also summarize and paraphrase. With so many difficult tasks to juggle at the same time, this creates ample room for error.
Conclusion
Nino-Murcia and Roth’s article concludes that “language proficiency of non-native defendants/detainees is highly relevant to the administration of justice”. Legal institutions, which “perform their activities mostly in and through language exchanges”, must be cognizant of “potential interactional trouble spots”, and take steps to remedy them. Mutual understanding is crucial, because there are fateful and enduring effects, with implications for procedural justice.
In Justice Chan Seng Onn’s judgement, he stated that Malay and BI “must be assumed to be sufficiently different such that it can create reasonable doubt as to the complete accuracy of the statement recording in order to avoid unfair prejudice to the accused”. He added that this is “especially pertinent in the light of the voluminous quantity of items in which Parti was questioned on in specific detail”. Justice Chan also noted that Parti was not questioned with reference to the actual physical items, and “[w]here the statements recorded are highly predicated on their details, the accuracy and precision of language translated to Parti would have been of paramount importance in the statement recording process”.
References
[1] Bali Ranaivo-Malancon, “Automatic Identification of Close Languages—Case study: Malay and Indonesian”, ECTI Transactions on Computer and Information Technology 2, no.2 (November 2006): 127.
[2] Hein Steinhauer, “Colonial History and Language Policy in Insular Southeast Asia and Madagascar”, in The Austronesian Languages of Asia and Madagascar, eds. Alexander Adelaar and Nikolaus Himmelmann (London: Routledge, 2005), 70-71.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Michael Chen and Dewi Fitzpatrick, “What are the Basic Differences Between Indonesian and Malay?”, Jala Translate, 28 May 2018, https://medium.com/not-lost-in-translation-a-guide-by-jala/what-are-the-basic-differences-between-indonesian-and-malay-e5a7f28930ac.
[5] For an example of an episode of Upin Ipin which was aired on an Indonesian television channel and subtitled in Bahasa Indonesia, refer to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y0bCp31Dho&t=302s.
[6] Adolfo M. García, Edinson Muñoz, and Boris Kogan, “Taxing the Bilingual Mind: Effects of Simultaneous Interpreting Experience on Verbal and Executive Mechanisms”, Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 23 (2020):729-39.