A former police officer and a banking executive have both achieved a long-held ambition – to become the first Emirati translators in the capital’s courts.
Khalid Al Bairaq was a police officer for 10 years, a job that brought him into contact with many Urdu speakers.
“I was already familiar with Urdu from my personal life,” he said. “But when I started working with Asians I mastered Urdu and how to interpret legal terms and procedures.”
Mr Al Bairaq noticed that he was able to simultaneously translate what the defendants were saying from Urdu and write it in Arabic, so he thought he would do well in translation.
“It is about delivering the idea clearly to both sides,” he said.
Five months ago he saw an advertisement posted by the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department (ADJD) in a newspaper saying it needed translators.
“I wanted to take advantage of the offer, and got the opportunity,” he said. “I was not particularly looking for a job in translation, I just wanted to shift from police work to the judicial sphere.”
He said he was interested in observing the legal process and to follow cases once they were transferred from the police to public prosecution, then to court.
“Before [as a police officer] I used to see the problems – but now I am seeing crises. In the police force we only received criminal and misdemeanour, but here there are civil, commercial and labour cases, so it offers great scope for expanding one’s horizons,” he said.
Although enjoying his current position at the department’s front desk, Mr Al Bairaq, 34, said he was very much looking forward to translating at the labour court.
Amna Al Zaabi, a 42-year-old mother of four, had never studied or practised translation before.
But she immediately passed the department’s entry examination to become an Urdu and English court translator.
Her first contact with Urdu came when she went to university for four years in India, where she achieved her bachelor’s degree in commerce.
After graduating in 1999, she worked at the United Arab Bank’s cash and clearing department for two years.
“Then I got married and had children ... then I started working again in 2013,” she said.
While working as a receptionist in the bank, she started applying for jobs.
“I always wanted to join ADJD,” she said.
“So when I saw they had a vacancy in translation, I applied, took the test and passed.”
Despite not having a background in translation Mrs Al Zaabi said she was not worried about the potential challenges, “because the important thing is to understand the idea and deliver it to the other person”.
While training at the reconciliation section, she came across a case that caught her eye – a couple had applied for a divorce after 30 years of marriage.
“Even the judge was surprised and said that after 30 years they wanted a divorce. They said they had tried to stay together, but it was not working out,” said Mrs Al Zaabi.
“I know marriages face problems during the first five years, but after 30? That surprised me a lot,” she said.
hdajani@thenational.ae
