La situació actual de la traducció jurada en llengua basca [The current state of affairs in sworn translation in the Basque language]

The professional certification of sworn translators and interpreters in the Basque language started in 1989 when the Oficina de Interpretación de Lenguas of the Spanish Foreign Ministry held its first examinations in Basque. As a result of the two examination sessions held, 10 sworn interpreters were certified. Since then, and particularly since the abovementioned Oficina discontinued the inclusion of Basque, Catalan and Galician in 1992, the Basque and Navarra autonomous governments have not created their own mechanisms for certifying new sworn translators and interpreters. As most sworn translators and interpreters are functionaries and are not allowed to work outside the purview of their institutional employment, only the Basque government, through its Official Translation Service, offers the possibility of certifying “the accuracy and legal equivalence of translations into Basque and from Basque to Spanish”. In this paper we present the Basque Language Translators Association’s (EIZIE) position and also the type of demand for sworn translation and interpretation in Basque.