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Equal access to the courts is fundamental to the legitimacy of our system of justice and the trust and confidence of Pennsylvanians in our courts. Language services for individuals who are limited English proficient (LEP) or are deaf or hard of hearing are essential to ensure that they are able to fully participate in judicial proceedings and court services, programs, and activities in which their rights and interests are at stake. Without these services, they are effectively denied the protection of our laws. Moreover, the courts themselves have an independent interest in ensuring the integrity of communications with LEP and deaf or hard of hearing court users so that the fact finder can hear evidence accurately and deliver justice fairly.
The policy of the Unified Judicial System is to provide meaningful language access for all individuals who are LEP to ensure that all persons have due process and equal access to all judicial proceedings, court services, programs and activities. Ensuring meaningful language access means providing timely, accurate, and effective language services at no cost to the court user.
In addition, it is the policy of the Unified Judicial System to provide equally effective communication to individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing, in part, by providing American Sign Language interpreters at no cost to litigants, witnesses and court spectators.
See, Language Access Plan for the Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania at 2, available at http://languageaccess.pacourts.us.
Pennsylvania's policies regarding language access to the courts are embodied in the Language Access Plan for the Unified Judicial System (LAP-UJS). This plan was approved by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in March 2017. The LAP-UJS policies and requirements, which are binding on the judicial districts, are incorporated herein by reference. The LAP-UJS is available at languageaccess.pacourts.us.
The judicial district has appointed a language access coordinator who can be reached at languageaccesscoordinator@perryco.org.
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