Translation and interpreting services in Annapolis

Language access rules in Maryland

Court interpreter program

Maryland Judiciary Court Interpreter Program, established in 1996 and reported by Access to Justice in the Maryland Administrative Office of the Courts, which recruits, tests, and trains interpreters, provides certified and qualified foreign language and ASL interpreters, and maintains the Court Interpreter Registry of certified and qualified interpreters.

Court-certified languages

The Judiciary offers certification exams twice a year in 14 languages (Arabic, Amharic, Bosnian-Serbian-Croatian, Cantonese, French, Haitian Creole, Korean, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and Vietnamese), with certified interpreters currently available in 12 of them; in other languages courts rely on qualified Registry interpreters, and the Registry lists 465 interpreters in 72 languages.

The rule

Md. Code, Courts and Judicial Proceedings 9-114 requires the court, on application, to appoint a qualified interpreter when a party, witness, or victim is deaf or cannot readily understand or communicate spoken English, with costs paid by the county where the proceedings began unless taxed as costs; Maryland Rule 1-333 requires courts to appoint certified interpreters when possible, and Judiciary policy permits qualified and non-Registry interpreters when no certified or qualified Registry interpreter is available.

Equal Access to Public Services Act

Md. Code, State Government 10-1103 requires covered state departments, agencies, and programs to take reasonable steps to give limited English proficient people equal access to public services and to translate vital documents into any language spoken by an LEP population that makes up 3 percent of the population within the area served by a local office.

Language access plans and reporting

Under State Government 10-1103, covered agencies, including the State Police, Comptroller, Maryland Transit Administration, State Department of Education, and each principal department, must update language access plans every two years, report annually by September 30 to the Maryland Language Advisory Group, and fully implement the law by July 1, 2028.

Language services at no cost

State Government 10-1102 defines equal access to include language assistance that ensures accurate, timely, and effective communication at no cost to the individual and is not significantly restricted, delayed, or of lower quality than services for English-proficient people.

Translated IEPs and IFSPs

Md. Code, Education 8-405(f)(4) requires school personnel, on request, to provide a completed IEP or IFSP translated into a parent's native language within 30 days when that language is spoken by more than 1 percent of the local school system's students.

Most requested court languages

In fiscal year 2025, the most requested circuit court languages were Spanish (54 percent of assignments), ASL, Amharic, Arabic, French, and Mandarin, and the courts received first-time requests for Kinyarwanda, Kurdish, Taishanese, Oromo, Malayalam, and Ukrainian.

Refugee program

The Maryland Office for Refugees and Asylees (MORA), in the Department of Human Services, served 11,028 participants from 76 countries in fiscal year 2025, with 45 percent in suburban Washington (primarily Prince George's and Montgomery counties) and 23 percent in the Baltimore metropolitan area.