Right to Interpretation in Relation to Unauthorised Border Crossing and Its Criminalisation

• Published in: Internal Security Vol. 14; no. 1; pp. 47 - 62
• Main Author: Kupferschmidtová, Elena Nikolajová
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Szczytno Akademia Policji w Szczytnie 01.01.2022; Police Academy in Szczytno
• Subjects: Borders; Communication; Competence; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Criminalization; Fines & penalties; Intercultural communication; Legal research; Legislation; Medical research; Migration; Native language; Pandemics; Penalties; Public Administration; Public Law; Translation; Greece; Europe; Turkey; EU; illegal border crossing; police; thirdcountry nationals; illegal migration; crime; severity of punishment
• ISSN: 2080-5268; 2719-9606
• DOI: 10.5604/01.3001.0016.0371

The presented study offers an insight into the issue of penalties imposed within selected EU Member States for the unauthorised crossing of the borders of the respective Member States and the right of third-country nationals to communicate in their own language. The right to communicate in one‘s language as a procedural guarantee applies to a third-country national only in cases of necessary interpretation before the competent authorities. However, the question remains whether the respective rights can also be applied to the translation of documents in proceedings, in particular in cases where the Member State concerned impose fines for crossing the national border illegally. At the same time, interpretation into the mother tongue remains an unanswered question. National legislation regulating the above-mentioned issue varies greatly across the EU Member States. Thus, the primary objective of the present study is to point out the diversity of severity of penalties imposed in the selected EU countries and to describe the impact it might have on providing language assistance for communication between third-country nationals and competent authorities.