Capus, Nadja

2024-05-28, Hohl Zürcher, Franziska, Capus, Nadja

In multilingual societies, translation and interpreting play pivotal roles in facilitating access to essential services provided by public institutions for individuals speaking languages other than the official language. However, prevailing assumptions among professionals in these institutions often regard translation as a mechanical process, overlooking the inherent interpretive nature of interlingual transfer. This study examines the interventions of intercept interpreters/translators (IITs) in the translation process within the criminal justice system, focusing on covert communication surveillance. An analysis of 538 translated intercept records (TIRs) reveals that IITs significantly intervene in selecting and interpreting content, often decrypting vague or encoded terms used in intercepted conversations. These interventions, which include annotations and comments, shape the evidentiary value and comprehensibility of TIRs. The findings highlight the complex nature of communication surveillance and underscore the need to reconsider the roles of translators and interpreters. This study contributes to our overall understanding about the ambiguous roles interpreters and translators may play in public institutions. As for IITs, the study suggests a re-evaluation of their roles that recognizes their specialized skills and multiple tasks.

2024, Capus, Nadja, Hohl Zürcher, Franziska

2023, Capus, Nadja

2023, Kristian Lasslett, Capus, Nadja

The role which corporate and financial secrecy vehicles play in enabling transnational corruption has justifiably received growing scholarly and policy interest. Less attention, however, has been given to the enabling role played by political secrecy vehicles. Political secrecy vehicles denote arrangements that allow individuals to clandestinely exercise public authority, which is concealed by a formal bureaucratic façade. This article develops analytical categories for deconstructing political secrecy structures and pinpointing the threat they pose to anti-corruption enforcement. These structures and threats are then empirically explored through an investigative case study. The case study plots how shadow political space in Uzbekistan and the simulacra of impartial public administration, was utilised by a kleptocratic syndicate to conceal an international bribery scheme, and then weaponised by the conspirators to successfully frustrate enforcement efforts in Europe. Drawing on key lessons from the case study, proposals are made for how the threats posed by political secrecy structures can be jurisprudentially and practically counteracted.

2024, Hohl Zürcher, Franziska, Capus, Nadja

In multilingual societies, translation and interpreting play pivotal roles in facilitating access to essential services provided by public institutions for individuals speaking languages other than the official language. However, prevailing assumptions among professionals in these institutions often regard translation as a mechanical process, overlooking the inherent interpretive nature of interlingual transfer. This study examines the interventions of intercept interpreters/translators (IITs) in the translation process within the criminal justice system, focusing on covert communication surveillance. An analysis of 538 translated intercept records (TIRs) reveals that IITs significantly intervene in selecting and interpreting content, often decrypting vague or encoded terms used in intercepted conversations. These interventions, which include annotations and comments, shape the evidentiary value and comprehensibility of TIRs. The findings highlight the complex nature of communication surveillance and underscore the need to reconsider the roles of translators and interpreters. This study contributes to our overall understanding about the ambiguous roles interpreters and translators may play in public institutions. As for IITs, the study suggests a re-evaluation of their roles that recognizes their specialized skills and multiple tasks.

2023-04-14, Capus, Nadja, Hohl Zürcher, Franziska, Stoll, Mirjam

In this article, we examine whether the participation of an interpreter in police–suspect investigative interviews affects the perception of statement credibility based on the written record of the interview and, whether this relationship is influenced by the interaction style as depicted in the written record. This study thus addresses the question of whether the credibility problems observed in interpreter-mediated investigative interviews are carried forward to the case file and is based on the content analysis of 102 actual written records of police–suspect interviews conducted in Switzerland. Our results show, first, that written suspect statements are indeed considered to be less credible when an interpreter participates in the interview. Second, this effect is mediated by the questioning style and the fragmentation of discourse. According to the written records of interpreter-mediated interviews, interviewers use a more controlling questioning style and suspects provide shorter answers, which in turn results in reduced statement credibility.

2023, Brodersen, Kei Hannah, Capus, Nadja, Rosset, Damian

The tension between formality and informality is intrinsic to the implementation of criminal law. Criminal procedures in fact always happen on a continuum between formality and informality, where the different actors involved (police ofcers and other street-level bureaucrats, prosecutors, judges, experts, defense lawyers, etc.) continuously perform and negotiate (in)formality. This special issue explores these ’politics of (in)formality“ in different criminal law settings and from different disciplinary perspectives. The different empirical contributions explore the continuum between formality and informality as well as practices of informalization in two different levels of the criminal justice system: police investigations and court proceedings.

2024, Capus, Nadja, Hohl Zürcher, Franziska

2023-03-11, Capus, Nadja, Bozinova, Melody

Transnational corporate bribery cases are increasingly resolved through non-trial resolutions called settlements. These settlements lead to a considerable shift of the prosecutorial authority’s role. Drawing on Goffman’s impression management framework (1959), this article conceptualises settlement procedures as ‘backstage criminal justice’ that aims to shield criminal justice practice from public view and showcase a team-crafted narrative. Our narrative analysis of a publicly available settlement in England and Wales investigates the prosecutorial authority’s impression management strategies within settlement storytelling. The analysis reveals three distinct and sometimes conflicting narratives of the prosecutorial role in settling criminal justice. These conflicting narratives reflect the ambiguities inherent in enforcing national criminal laws transnationally against economically relevant companies.

2023, Bally, Elodie, Capus, Nadja

Cette recherche s’intéresse au travail des interprètes qui interviennent lorsque des interceptions de communications sont ordonnées dans le cadre d’une enquête pénale. L’efficacité de ces interceptions est en effet limitée dans les cas où les conversations se sont déroulées en langues étrangères. Sans les interprètes, les acteurs de la procédure pénale se retrouveraient ainsi souvent démunis face à des conversations qu’ils ne comprennent pas. La première partie de ce travail offre une introduction générale en présentant les mesures de surveillance des communications et en analysant la façon dont le rôle et le travail de ces interprètes est traité dans le système juridique suisse. La deuxième partie aborde la question de la qualification juridique du résultat du travail de ces interprètes. Elle identifie ainsi les conditions nécessaires pour qu’un élément récolté lors d’une enquête puisse être qualifié de preuve dans une procédure pénale suisse. La troisième et dernière partie est consacrée à une analyse empirique de dossiers pénaux contenant des interceptions de communications en langues étrangères. Elle a pour but de vérifier si la pratique est conforme à ce qui a été discuté dans la deuxième partie de cette étude. L’objectif consiste ainsi à déterminer si le résultat du travail des interprètes d’interceptions de communications peut être qualifié de preuve dans une procédure pénale.