You misunderstand me. Translators should translate forms. Interpretation in the court room already happens, and is a separate issue to the translation of documents. Nobody has to lose their job for the sake of documents being translated so I still do not see what your point is, except to be used to divide people. Having language equality means that there would be no division at all, and that there would be equal rights. A pretty basic principle of human rights!

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You’ve managed to undo your own arguement in consecutive sentences. Do you seriously expect that these ‘one or 2 translators’ are going to travel round the whole of Wales to attend the court appearences of Welsh language activists providing ‘interpretation in the courtroom’? That will hardly pacify the activists for long. What if they are unavailable? Your idea, although good, would require more like ‘one or 2′ per town… and where is the money for this going to come from? The answer is that it won’t come from anywhere in these tightened times. The only solution I can see is that all future court service positions will be advertised as Welsh speaking essential. This takes us back to my ‘old as the hills tactic’ which was never actually meant to be a tactic… more a simple reality.

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Why does anyone have to lose their job? You can have English-speaking staff prepare a form in English and then send it for translation to a small unit of translators (probably only one or two translators for the whole of Wales). You can still then have interpretation in the court room for people that don’t speak Welsh. The issue was about the court summons, as far as I can tell. A summons that only really needs to be translated once! Your tactic is pointless really, to try and suggest that those who want equality want to get people sacked. This tactic is as old as the hills and comes from the same territory as those who say “Welsh speakers will force non-Welsh speakers out of jobs”, particularly in the south eastern Valleys. Nobody needs to lose their job in order for equality to be achieved in the justice system. That’s the bottom line, and you don’t have a leg to stand on.

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I asked plainly for a solution, but when I peel away the layers of veiled personal attacks I see that you offer none. I asked what is the alternative to kicking local, monoglot court service employees out of their jobs and replacing them with Welsh speakers… again no alternatives were provided.

With no practical/workable solutions offered please tell me why I and the 89% (you’re kidding yourself if you think 11% of Merthyr could be classed as fluent) monoglot population of Merthyr should treat Welsh language activists with anything other than suspicion. Provide a working and fair solution for this difficult situation and it would be completely unreasonable to suspect that Welsh language activists might be just as much out for themselves and a monopoly on the jobs as they are linguistic rights. At present it is most certainly not unreasonable to suspect that.

p.s. I’ll keep the pseudonym if its all the same with you thanks. Dare I point out the irony of you trying to shame me into giving you my real name at the bottom of an article about a Welsh language activist breaking into and vandalising somebody else’s property?

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Iestyn: the average cost of keeping an adult in prison in England and Wales is said to be at least £40,000 per year. By my calculation, if Jamie Bevan serves the standard fifty percent before release, it would cost the hard-working, decent, law-abiding, cliché-ridden British taxpayer close on £2000 – which is probably far less than it would have cost the Courts Service to meet its ethical obligations to him in the first place. Like the cases of Liam Stacey and the ‘Facebook Two’, another triumph for British justice!

I’m not a constitutional expert, so I don’t know to what degree non-devolved statutory bodies such as the Courts Service are obliged to deliver bilingual services, but perhaps someone from ‘our’ government could have a quiet word with Kenneth Clarke as the minister responsible and point out that some of his predecessors came to regret similar cloddish behaviour in the past? Annoeth cicio nyth cacwn.

I was heartened to see my own MP Susan Elan Jones joining forces with Plaid’s Jill Evans in issuing a statement condemning the magistrate’s actions, although as Don illustrates there are still plenty of the old ‘Home & Colonial’ wing of the Labour Party in Wales about.

And finally (for now), Hwnt is right in suggesting that Welsh-speakers – especially but by no means exclusively in those areas where they aren’t in either a majority of a very substantial minority – are still reluctant to insist on service in their own language. This may be down to a continued, if somewhat more covert and attenuated, inferiority complex; or it may be due to a suspicion that – like Hwnt – they will be met with what at best is regretful incomprehension, at worst outright hostility. If the reports are correct, the Courts Service apologised to Jamie Bevan for its failings while doing nothing of any substance to correct them.

Thanks for your comments.

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All those posters above take the view that the Court’s failure to supply a Welsh Language version of a form is sufficient to exonerate Mr Bevan from compliance. The Court, however, is itself allowed to use reasonableness as a defence for not suplying an Order in Welsh (all public services are). In this case they could say:- “The demand for a Welsh Language form is virtually non-existent and all people in Wales can access an Order in a language that they can understand. Mr Bevan has other legal means at his disposal (The Welsh Language Commissioner) to persue any grievance.”

Just to make you all happy, If the court had supplied the Order in Welsh only to a non Welsh speaker then that person would have a good case to claim that he was unable to comply and that the court was being unreasonable (only 12% of the population of Wales are fluent in Welsh and there is no Language Commisioner for the English Language in Wales.) I’m confident however that if the non-Welsh speaker in this case couldn’t show that he had actually asked the Court officers for a translation or explanation of the document… he would still be going to jail!

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Welsh-speakers are non-citizens. An aunt of mine in Caernarfonshire was obliged to spend her last days in a home where most of the staff and a considerable proprotion of the inmates couldn’t speak Welsh at all. Very many fluent and literate Welsh-speakers never use their mother-tongue for official purposes for fear of being discriminated against (e.g. applying for planning permission). My own registration of my wife’s death in Welsh in Powys was a demeaning experience.

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Jamie Bevan has no difficulty understanding English. That’s not the point. The point is that, as a Welsh speaker, he has a moral (and in most cases, a legal) right to services in his own language in his own country. He was, and still is, making a stand to highlight the denial of that basic right. He is doing so not only on his own behalf, but also on behalf of all the other Welsh speakers who are frequently denied even basic services in their own language.

Secondly, Jamie is from Merthyr, not an incomer. Around 11% of the population of Merthyr speak Welsh. So painting this as a face-off between local people and Welsh-speaking incomers won’t work. Jamie is a native of Merthyr Tudful, and speaks Welsh. If you want to talk about fairness, how about being fair to a local man whose only condition is that he be dealt with in his native language in his own town?

Also, Jamie is not a school teacher, contrary to what the article says. He teaches Welsh as a second language to adults, but that is not his main job.

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There have been many imprisonments of Cymdeithas yr Iaith members over the last thirty years. Before Jamie Bevan the most recent instances were Ffred Ffransis and Osian Jones, both in 2009.

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