Inadequate translation provision for plaintiffs in the Nuhanovi/Mustafi vs. Netherlands actions

Dear Mr Hofhuis,

At the hearing before The Hague District Court on 16 June 2008 of the legal actions brought by the Srebrenica survivors Hasan Nuhanovi? and the family of Rizo Mustafic against the Netherlands, the Bosnian plaintiffs were not able to rely on the provision of adequate translation between Dutch and Bosnian. We, the signatories of this letter, write on behalf of Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker International / Society for Threatened Peoples International, to register our complaint in this regard.

We are very concerned that facts in the case were either misrepresented or inadequately communicated and that judges, lawyers and plaintiffs were deprived of an adequate basis for their objective consideration. There were numerous omissions in the translation from the Dutch and some parts of the Bosnian version were of very poor linguistic quality. By way of example "desperate circumstances" was translated as "depressive circumstances", while specific details were muddled and quotations in English left untranslated.

Representatives of Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker were sitting with some 50 survivors of the massacre in the courtroom and in the District Court's video relay suite. They were able to follow the pleadings of the two plaintiffs and the Dutch side continuously up until 4.30 p.m. The Netherlands was accused of having failed to protect the relatives of the plaintiffs and thousands of other inhabitants of Srebrenica from the murderous forces of General Ratko Mladic.

In the view of our human rights organisation, neither the Bosnian parties to proceedings of such sensitivity nor Bosnians listening to those proceedings should have been expected to do without reliable and competent translation. Fortunately Hasan Nuhanovic speaks English and the family of Rizo Mustafic had their own interpreter available to translate their statements.

While we sympathise with the difficult task faced by the interpreter, requiring not only in-depth knowledge of the background to the case but also substantial powers of concentration, we must urge you as President of the District Court to ensure that Bosnian parties to future legal proceedings are provided with competent translation into Bosnian.

We thank you in advance and trust you will appreciate our reasons for releasing this letter of complaint to the Press today.

Yours sincerely

Tilman Zülch, President, GfbV International

Jasna Causevic, South-Eastern Europe Specialist, GfbV Germany