April 29, 2024 CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia has added Spanish translations to several forms used in domestic violence, personal safety, and mental hygiene cases.
The West Virginia judiciary has had a long-standing contract with Language Line Translation Solutions to translate individual court forms and to provide telephone interpreters when needed. As part of the Court’s efforts to expand transparency and access to justice, all court forms can be – and often are – translated into other languages as needed. Litigants in domestic violence, sexual violence, and mental hygiene cases may present the most urgent need for such translations to be made quickly.
“These forms are often needed for our citizens to seek immediate relief from our state’s courts, particularly in those cases where immediate action is warranted. This is an important step in ensuring that all our citizens have access to our Court system,” said Chief Justice Tim Armstead. Federal pass-through grants from The Justice and Community Services Section of the Division of Administrative Services provided funding from the Violence Against Women grant and additional funds from the National Criminal History Improvement Project grant to create the forms.
The Spanish language forms are available at https://www.courtswv.gov/publicresources/court-forms. Other documents issued by courts in domestic violence and mental hygiene cases also have been prepared in English and Spanish so that when a court issues an order, Spanish-speaking parties can understand the directives and orders from the court.
“The West Virginia Constitution guarantees all West Virginians that ‘The courts of this state shall be open’ and that ‘Justice shall be administered without sale, denial or delay.’ We want our courts to be accessible to everyone. We never want any of our citizens to feel they are left out or don’t have full access to our state’s courts due to the fact that they can’t understand the forms used by our courts,” said Chief Justice Armstead.