For people who are deaf-blind, intervenors may be used. Intervenors facilitate the
interaction of a person who is deaf-blind with other people and the environment.^92
Intervenors can assist people who are deaf-blind to communicate, for example, using a
tactile and/or visual form of language or any combination of them. A deaf-blind person,
for reasons of comfort and the protection of privacy, may wish to use or not use a
particular intervenor that he/she knows.
It is important to be aware of potential conflicts of interest if the interpreter or intervenor is
a family member or care giver and the possibility that the interpreter or intervenor may try
to influence the client. Lawyers must ensure that they are ascertaining the wishes of their
client.
For appearances before courts or tribunals, lawyers should contact the relevant registrar
to make requests for the accommodation of their clients. For the purposes of a client who
is Deaf or has hearing loss, and is a witness in a proceeding, for example, it may be
necessary for both a sign language interpreter and a real-time captioner to be present. A
sign language interpreter can communicate most of the dialogue that occurs in a legal
proceeding, but a person who is Deaf or has hearing loss may require real-time
captioning in addition to sign language interpretation. Through reference to real-time
captioning, a person who is Deaf or who has hearing loss can access oral concepts that
were not translated by their interpreter and, they can check to ensure that their interpreter
is correctly rendering, orally, their evidence given through sign language.
Lawyers must remember Rule 4.06(8) of the Ontario Rules of Civil Procedure^93 when
commissioning an affidavit for a client who is Deaf or has hearing loss and who has
limited proficiency in written English or French. The Rule requires the lawyer to certify
that the affidavit was interpreted to the client by an interpreter who swore or affirmed to
interpret the contents correctly.
A teletypewriter (TTY), also known as a text telephone, is an important aid for
communication, in written format, over telephone lines. This machine has a typewriter
92 Online: Rotary Cheshire Homes http://www.rotarycheshirehomes.org/definitions.htm.
93 Rules of Civil Procedure, R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 194 [Rules of Civil Procedure].