§ 21.008.Privilege of Interpreter for the Deaf

A short provision without which every other privilege would fail for deaf people.

If a deaf person communicates through an interpreter to a person under circumstances in which the communication would be privileged and the deaf person could not be required to testify about the communication, the privilege applies to the interpreter as well.

Privileges generally assume two people in a room. Attorney-client, physician-patient, and clergy privileges protect a confidential communication, and the presence of a third party ordinarily destroys the confidentiality on which they rest.

For a deaf client, the third party is unavoidable. Without this section, a deaf person consulting a lawyer would face a choice between having no interpreter and having no privilege — and the interpreter would be the obvious witness to subpoena.

The section is derivative rather than freestanding. It creates no privilege of its own; it extends whatever privilege already covers the communication. Where the underlying communication is not privileged, the interpreter is not protected either.

The test is stated twice over — the communication would be privileged, and the deaf person could not be required to testify about it — so the interpreter's protection matches the client's exactly.