On a Crown application in a criminal jury proceeding, the court ruled on the admissibility of Somali language translation evidence relating to intercepted private communications forming a critical part of the prosecution case.
Applying the expert-opinion admissibility framework under Mohan, as informed by Abbey, the court held that the proposed witness was qualified by experience to provide opinion evidence translating the Somali portions of the recordings.
The court found that the defence objections concerning training, methodology, dialect knowledge, and objectivity went primarily to weight rather than admissibility.
The probative value of the opinions substantially exceeded any prejudicial effect, and the evidence was admitted with procedural directions governing how the recordings, transcripts, and viva voce translations would be presented to the jury.
