DOHA: A law is in the offing to make it mandatory for experts from various fields, including translators, to register with the Ministry of Justice.
Permission from the justice ministry would be needed for these experts to carry out their profession, either independently or as an employee of the state or a private body.
A draft law was approved late last month by the State Cabinet that defines experts as those having adequate education, training or mere experience to do their specialist work.
Such specialist workers may include real estate evaluators, banking and financial experts, accountants, engineers, technologists and above all, translators.
The Qatar Chamber, representative body of the private sector, has, meanwhile, urged the government to set up a department at justice ministry that would define and register ‘experts’, including translators, and regulate their work.
The Chamber has asked that the proposed department should frame rules and guidelines on who should be called an expert, as also registration criteria. Registration should be periodically renewable, says the Chamber.
But the Chamber is insisting that all ‘experts’, including translators, must be Qatari nationals so that they can make some extra income. The Chamber has suggested that the justice ministry should develop training programmes so that Qataris should be trained to work as experts and translators.
Meanwhile, the draft law seeks not only to authorise the justice ministry to regulate the work of experts and translators but also prepare a national database.
The aim of the draft law is to make sure that Qatar catches up with the rest of the region and the world in this regard. Even the GCC states have such laws, reports Al Sharq.
The draft law specifies punishments to be meted out to those experts and translators who violate its provisions. The justice ministry has in the mean time plans to sign a memorandum of understanding with the department of translation at Hamad bin Khalifa University to develop the work of translation. The Peninsula
