With the JURINTE projects students can gain first-hand experience in legal settings.
Jurinte-Court of First Instance (CFI)
Jurinte-CFI was the first concrete result of the Educational Innovation Project Jurinte funded by the Faculties of Arts & Philosophy and Law. Thanks to the cooperation of the Court of Ghent, students from the Master in Interpreting have been able to interpret simulated trials in court since 2017, organized by their lecturers together with the Presiding Judge and public prosecutors.
The first edition made news:
- Juristenkrant
- Fragment AVS
- Fragment Radio2
- Interview with B. Defrancq in Traduire 245. [in French]
Jurinte-Institute of Judicial Training (IJT)
In 2019, a moot court was organised for the first time for IJT trainees and interpreting students. The moot court is based on real criminal files. IJT trainees prepare a file for the role of presiding judge and for the role of public prosecutor. Interpreting lecturers prepare the pleas and their role as defendant or victim.
The day of the trial, the IJT trainees have an introductory class on the most important legislation surrounding legal interpreting, the most important ethical principles and they receive general information on the best practices when communicating through a sworn interpreter. Afterwards, the IJT trainees and interpreting students practice together. Both groups receive feedback from both supervisors.
Jurinte-Paulo
The collaboration between the Master in Interpreting and the police school in East-Flanders was established in 2018. Thanks to interpreting lecturers, aspiring police inspectors can learn the most important legislation surrounding sworn interpreting, the basic principles in interpreting ethics and they learn how to use interpreters to the best of their capabilities with a few rules of thumb. Likewise, interpreting students learn about communication strategies related to reception, intervention and interrogation from police inspectors.
The joint practice sessions are organized two to six times a year. These sessions consist of role-playing exercises where the aspiring police inspectors practice reception and intervention with foreign language speakers (interpreting lecturers, trainees, observers) and receive assistance from an interpreting student. Both groups receive feedback on their performance from all supervisors.
These exercises are held alternately on the Mercator Campus and on-site.
The Federal Police Communication Service dedicated the following article to this project in PolNews: