4.4. The Right to Adequate Interpretation Facilities Victims and witnesses have the right to testify in their native language or another spoken language, and to become acquainted with their written or registered statements.156 Ensuring appropriate interpretation for victims and witnesses is crucial to ensuring that communication between them and the judge is effective. Monitors observed that providing interpreters to all victims and witnesses needing interpretation is a challenge. Many judges complained of the lack of interpreters in courts. In many cases, however, the judge did not send anyone to look for an interpreter despite the clear need for one. Monitors got the impression that due to the chronic lack of interpreters many judges do not even attempt to secure one for victims or witnesses. As mentioned above in Chapter III section 3.7., in some cases judges themselves served as the interpreter or switched back and forth between Russian and the state language to move the proceedings along. In other cases interpreters were used only when statements were taken from the victim. The following vignette presents a typical occurrence. Vignette: The judge was conducting a hearing in a generally unprofessional manner. She hurried the witnesses while they were testifying and at one point said to them in Russian, “We have nine more witnesses. Don’t think too much. It is not mathematics here for which you have to think.” Later when one of the witnesses asked the court to provide his testimony in the Russian language, the judge stated, “You are Moldovan, so you will give testimony in the language in which the hearing is conducted.” (It should be noted that there was an interpreter present in the courtroom.) The witness began to speak the state language poorly, continuing to insist that he be heard in Russian. The judge became irritated, saying, “Do not engage in demagoguery in the courtroom! I see you know Romanian language very well. You speak half Romanian half Russian. When you gave testimony during the criminal investigation, did you need an interpreter then?” The witness declared that the criminal investigation body did not provide a translator for him. The judge then instructed the clerk to register in the minutes a statement that the witness did not need an interpreter during the criminal investigation. The same interpreters provide interpretation to both defendants and victims, as needed, and monitors observed similar problems regarding the quality of interpretation for victims as noted in Chapter III above with respect to the quality of interpretation provided to defendants. The principal difference is that victims face a greater challenge than defendants in securing interpreters because of the lack of interpreters in the courts. 4.5. The Right to Legal Assistance The Criminal Procedure Code provides that victims have the right to choose a lawyer or to have a lawyer appointed by the state in very grave or exceptionally grave cases if they do not have means to retain one. 157 The Code provides that injured parties also have the right to choose a lawyer or to have one appointed in cases ����������������������������������������� in which��������������������������������� the injured party does not have financial means to hire one.158 156 ����������������������������������������������������������������������� See Art. 16 and Art. 90 para. (12) p. 8 of the Criminal Procedure Code. 157 ������������������������������������������������������ Art. 58 para. (4) p. 2 of the Criminal Procedure Code. 158 ������������������������������������������������������� Art. 60 para. (1) p. 18 of the Criminal Procedure Code. 75