Jacobs & Maryns (2022) on narrative co-construction and credibility. Maryns & Jacobs (2025) on languages of lesser diffusion and the right to interpretation.
Policy briefing / July 2026
Interpretation Failure in the UK Asylum System
Three reforms: independently accredited asylum interpreters, original-language testimony retained beside the English record, and any AI used in decision-making operating on what the applicant actually said.
Applicant speechI cannot say this here.
Official recordI do not know.
Credibility finding
The problem
The record is not what was said. It is what survived.
An asylum seeker speaks through an interpreter. The English version becomes the record. That record decides whether they are believed. It can decide whether they stay.
The Home Office buys interpretation through a chain: Home Office to contractor, contractor to agency, agency to interpreter. Cost drives the chain. Quality comes after.
The damage is documented. Interpreters can work without guaranteed qualifications. Audio captures the applicant speaking in their own language. The written transcript records only English: the interpreter's rendering, treated as the applicant's words. The original-language transcript does not exist.
The evidence
One year following the failure.
Interviews with immigration lawyers, barristers, interpreters, and caseworkers.
The Home Office procurement framework, NRPSI, and DPSI accreditation structures.
Case studies from Belgian and Afghan asylum proceedings.
The ICIBI 2023 inspection: interpreter shortages, cancelled interviews, dialect mismatch, English proficiency concerns, and missing quality assurance.
Parts of this research are published with the Refugee Law Initiative, University of London, and the Legal Action Group. The full argument is in The Manifesto of Translational Justice (2026). For the Government's own inspection evidence, read the ICIBI inspection post.
The reforms
Put it in the contracts.
Mandatory accreditation for all interpreters in asylum proceedings
The Diploma in Public Service Interpreting is the main UK qualification for legal and public-service interpreting. Home Office asylum contracts do not currently require it. Reform 1 would require every interpreter to demonstrate independently verified competence in both English and the applicant's language, as well as competence in the particular demands of asylum interpretation.
Accreditation must test more than whether an individual speaks two languages. It must establish whether they can preserve meaning accurately under the evidential, procedural and emotional pressures of an asylum interview.
What accreditation must test
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Bidirectional language competence
Proficiency in English and the applicant's language, including the relevant regional variety or dialect.
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Consecutive interpreting
Memory, note-taking, turn management and the interpretation of extended or non-linear testimony.
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Preservation of meaning
Accurate handling of uncertainty, register, emphasis, dates, locations, relationships and culturally embedded expressions.
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Ambiguity management
The ability to identify and communicate when no exact equivalent exists, rather than silently simplifying or selecting one meaning.
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Asylum-system knowledge
Understanding of asylum procedure, credibility assessment and the consequences that additions, omissions or altered wording can have for an applicant's case.
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Professional ethics
Confidentiality, impartiality, role boundaries and the duty to disclose when accurate interpretation is not possible.
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Trauma-informed practice
The interpretation of fragmented, hesitant or emotionally difficult testimony without making it appear more inconsistent than the original account.
How competence should be assessed
The principal assessment should be a recorded simulation of an asylum interview, supported by sight translation and direct language-proficiency testing.
- Recorded asylum-interview simulation
- Sight translation
- English-language proficiency
- Applicant-language and dialect proficiency
- Professional ethics and procedural knowledge
- Periodic revalidation
- Random performance auditing
Performance should be assessed against nationally standardised error categories, including material omission, addition, distortion, altered certainty, failure to preserve ambiguity and failure to identify a comprehension or dialect problem.
One standard, two routes
The interpreter pool is not uniform. Established professional qualifications are available in some languages, while languages of lesser diffusion, rare dialects and minority languages may have much smaller qualified pools. The route to accreditation may therefore differ, but the core standard should not.
Tier 1 — established qualification route
Interpreters working in languages for which an appropriate professional qualification is available should be required to hold the DPSI, or an independently recognised equivalent, together with an asylum-specific practical assessment covering the competencies above.
RequirementDPSI or equivalent + asylum-specific assessment
Tier 2 — language-specific competency route
Where the DPSI or an equivalent qualification is unavailable, interpreters should complete an independently administered, language-specific assessment applying the same core competencies and practical standards.
RequirementIndependent language-specific assessment against the same core standard
The route may differ according to the availability of qualifications in a particular language. The underlying standard must not: no interpreter should enter an asylum interview without independently verified competence in both languages and in the specific demands of asylum interpretation.
Contractors and agencies should be required to evidence accreditation, revalidation and audit compliance as a condition of any Home Office interpreting contract.
Mandatory transcription and retention of the applicant's testimony in their own language
Audio captures the room, including the applicant speaking in their own language. The transcript records only English: the interpreter's rendering, attributed to the applicant. Decisions, credibility findings, and appeals work from that document.
The original stays as unanalysed audio. Nobody transcribes it. Nobody checks it against the English version. It never enters the decision chain.
Dr Laura Smith-Khan has shown how multilingual interactions become monolingual documents. The interpreter is in the room, then disappears on paper.
Transcribe and retain the original-language testimony beside the English record. If someone challenges the interpretation, there should be something to check.
The purpose is not surveillance. It is accountability. If the interpretation is challenged, there must be something to check it against.
Where AI is used in asylum decision-making, it must operate on the original language testimony
The Home Office's Asylum Case Summarisation tool summarises an English transcript that has already passed through interpretation. Original speech. Interpreter's English. AI summary. Three layers.
A March 2026 legal opinion by Cloisters Chambers and Doughty Street Chambers found that Home Office AI use in asylum cases is likely unlawful when applicants are not told and cannot challenge what happened.
We built a Tigrinya summarisation model to show that original-language processing can be done. The fix is simple: preserve the applicant's own words, then build from there.
The ask
Check the chain. Keep the original. Hear evidence.
- Check interpreter accreditation, including English competence, in the Home Office asylum procurement chain. Put the two-tier framework into the contracts.
- Check record-keeping for asylum interviews. Require transcription and retention of original-language testimony.
- Where AI is used in asylum decision-making, make it work from original-language testimony.
- Invite Translational Justice to give evidence on any of these reforms.
These reforms do not need new legislation. They need contract requirements. The mechanism exists. The will is the missing part.