But often, many of these trials get appealed based on the standard of interpreting, which eats up valuable court time.
New research by a former Dunedin lawyer and Victoria University of Wellington PhD candidate Tineke Jannink has shown Ministry of Justice guidance on interpreting was not always followed.
She said there were two predominant modes of interpreting.
"Consecutive, when you say a sentence, pause, allow for the interpretation, and then say another sentence, pause and allow for the interpretation.
"And simultaneous, when the person starts speaking and the interpretation happens at the same time, so there’s that overlap of speech."
Miss Jannink said the present guidelines had a strong emphasis on consecutive interpreting being used.
But after completing interviews with judges, lawyers and interpreters, as well as observations of some interpreted trials and hearings, she found "in practice" that both consecutive and simultaneous modes were used in trials, as well as some other techniques to account for different situations arising in court.
"So in reality, it's a little bit different to what the guidelines are suggesting.
"This flexibility of mode being used to meet the needs of trials, is not reflected in official guidance."
She believed it was important that policymakers, judges, lawyers and interpreters were aware of her research.
"In an ideal world, it would be great to have all of those people talking together to work out the best and most practical way forward in terms of what the guidelines should look like.
"Because in a trial, you've got lots of different discourse types, and even though ‘consecutive at all times’ sounds great, you're effectively doubling the length of the trial if you're requiring that to happen."
She also believed it could potentially kerb the number of appeals (based on the standard of interpreting) going through the court system at the moment.
"Not many of them are successful because I think ultimately the court will say it hasn't had a real impact on the result.
"But holding these appeals is potentially a waste of court time.
"If there were clearer guidelines that were more accurately reflective of what happens in practice and potentially what needs to happen in practice, which could be decided between those different interested parties, then potentially that could lower the amount of cases that are being appealed."
In the past two years, the Ministry of Justice had released further guidelines around court interpreting which provided "a little bit more room for variation", she said.
"But I think it would be fair to say that ideally, you would want further consultation between all of those groups and to reflect on what the guidelines currently say and whether that needs updating in any way."
