Translator as a participant of criminal enforcement legal relationship

The criminal enforcement legislation provides for the right to use translation services by both the convict and the institution or body, which is involved in the execution of punishment. Chances of involvement of the translator as other participant of criminal enforcement legal relationship are under consideration. According to the authors, the involvement of a translator to assist the convict on a pro bono basis (at the expense of the federal budget) is obligatory in "necessary cases" and in the course of investigative actions. The criteria for the category of "necessary cases" for rendering of translation services for the convicts - foreign citizens and persons without citizenship include: impossibility of realization and protection of the rights for those convicts who either do not know or have a poor knowledge of the Russian language provided for in Article 12 of the Penal Code of the Russian Federation; violation of order and conditions of serving punishments and taking disciplinary actions; impossibility to learn the information about the rights and duties of the convict, about an order and conditions of serving the sentence imposed by court, and about the changes of order and conditions of serving the punishments because of the lack of the Russian language knowledge; the solution of questions in a judicial proceeding of further sentence serving. The question of definition of extent of knowledge of Russian by convicts - foreign citizens and persons without citizenship is important. The convicts who do not know or poorly know Russian include: foreign citizens and persons without citizenship who either have a copy of sentence in a foreign language or who have this copy in their personal record; foreign citizens and persons without citizenship who do not have a permission to a temporary residence, a residence permit, a work permit or the patent. Providing the convict with a translator is an important way of protecting his rights, and participation of the translator in criminal enforcement legal relationship is of great importance for the observance of constitutional guarantees of the person. For this purpose, it is necessary to exclude uncertainty of the concept "necessary cases", to concretize and regulate it in the relevant articles of the Penal Code of the Russian Federation and to settle a legal status of the translator. We believe that creation of the Unified register of translators for judicial and law-enforcement activities will promote the settlement of their legal status and will allow solving a number of problems of law enforcement officers (including a penal correction system), translators and convicts - foreign citizens and persons without citizenship.

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