Translation and Interpreting

The legal interpreter: Ghost or intruder?

The paper tries to answer the question how the legal interpreter is seen in the judicial process. We will provide an image of the legal interpreter as mirrored by the consumers of legal interpreting services.  The paper will mirror the opinion of both foreigners who have been confronted with the Greek judiciary and of legal and police professionals in Greece.

Initially, the paper informs about the project DIDI which records the present situation and tries to increase awareness among policy makers in Greece as far legal interpreting is concerned.  The project is co-funded by the Hellenic Republic and the European Social Fund.

In particular, the project aims at mapping  for the first time the situation in Greece concerning the provision of legal interpreting services;  secondly, at. highlighting the shortcomings in the provision of interpreting services in a delicate environment such as the courts and police authorities in Greece, and, thirdly, at increasing awareness and providing the policy-makers with the necessary information to take measures that will improve the situation in Greece.

In our presentation we will deliver an overview of how interpreting before police authorities and courts has been handled so far in Greece; the second part of the paper will be dedicated to the picture of the legal interpreter  by presenting the findings our research team produced so far and provide an overview of the steps that will follow. The data to be presented stem from research conducted among foreign nationals in Greek prisons and legal and police professionals.

The purpose of this paper is the sectoral analysis and evaluation of the external audit reports in relation to the amounts of deferred taxes on the balance sheets of listed companies in the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). External auditors participate significantly in the preparation of financial reporting, reducing agency problems and aiding acceptance of such information by the users as reliable. The “unqualified” audit reports correspond to more than two thirds of the total, while in the banking sector
there is no “unqualified” (ie without even issue of ‘emphasis’) Audit Report after 2011. More than two thirds of Deferred Tax Assets - including those from Loss Carryforwards - (DTA), Deferred Tax Liabilities (DTL), and Deferred Tax in the Income Statement appear on the Balance Sheets of the companies audited by the Big 5. Audit firms and supervisory authorities do not seem to have made satisfactory evaluation and exploitation of this information.

KEYWORDS : Audit Reports, Deferred Taxation, Financial Statement Analysis, IAS