It’s both symbolic and practical.
If you are interested in the symbolic aspect, whether it is actually real on the ground or not does not matter. If you’re concerned about the symbolic aspect, we have to fix it.
Being concerned about the concrete and practical aspect means wondering whether there can be any misunderstanding that would prevent an individual from having access to justice. Personally, that does not worry me much.
There are nine judges around the table. You work in Parliament, have interpreters and are on a parliamentary committee. There may be people in the House of Commons who are not perfectly bilingual. I imagine that is the case. Sometimes interventions are made in French and they are translated. If one of your colleagues said that what someone had said was frightening, you would say that was not exactly what they said. This is exactly what happens in court.
There are nine judges around the table and they talk to each other. The possibility that a unilingual English-speaking judge who heard a case in French writes the judgment and makes a fundamental error is zero. Let’s be honest, it’s impossible.