professional-ethics
What is the scope of Interpreter code of ethics coming into play in future congresional investigations?
<p>It has been in the news lately that the President has had a number of private head ups with Putin. On the news someone suggested (Don't remember if it was a congress person or the newscaster), that the Interpreter should be subpoenaed to testify about what was said. </p>

<p>One of the basic ethics for Interpreters is confidentiality of a conversation between two people. It does not seem that this confidentiality is *codified in the USA, the ethics being defined by associations.</p>

<p>*Some courts have rules and guidelines and a few states have laws dealing with court room Interpreters.</p>

<p>At any rate it does not seem that Interpreters have any kind of privilege like lawyers and other professions have to varying degree with clients. I would imagine that is because criminals don't use professional Interpreters very often and the issues surrounding any privilege for an Interpreter have never come up with much if any frequency. </p>

<p>Can Congress compel the interpreter to testify, or can The President stop such testimony? </p>

<p>Added: How about we take it out of the presidential realm, might actually be a bad example I used. Maybe say it was a translated conversation between diplomats or cabinet officers, and for whatever reason (not necessarily malicious), the person just doesn't want to answer any questions about the conversation or they became incapacitated, got pissed and quit the job, or died. So the interpreter is called as a witness. Can the interpreter be compelled to testify under subpoena from Congress? How about not under subpoena but something like the Ambassador has died what did they talk about when they last met?</p>

<p>Anyone can be compelled to testify before Congress. The first question is whether there is a federal law immunizing translators from the obligation to testify under subpoena -- there is not (as far as I can determine). The second question would be whether one could lawfully resist testifying because doing so would violate some law: again, there does not appear to be any law prohibiting a translator from testifying as to some matter. The third question would be whether they could resist on the grounds that doing so would open them up to some other legal sanction. The possibility exists that if the translator is a member of the American Translators Association, he could be sanctioned for an ethics violation. Their <a href="http://atanet.org/docs/p_dm_ethics.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ethics procedure</a> includes "Gross negligence or willful misconduct in the performance of professional services or other unethical or unprofessional conduct based on demonstrable and serious <a href="http://atanet.org/governance/code_of_ethics.php" rel="nofollow noreferrer">violations of the Code</a>". Principle 2 therein is that members accept their duty "to hold in confidence any privileged and/or confidential information entrusted to us in the course of our work". Testifying under subpoena is not willful misconduct, so even given a provision in the code that barred revealing confidential information, the fact of being compelled testimony means that the conduct is not willful, and the organization could not lawfully sanction the member. Thus there would be no legal grounds to resist the order to testify. (This sets aside the complicating factor of executive privilege).</p>
