PanSALB call for multilingual court proceedings
The Pan SA Language Board says multilingual court proceedings are key to equal access to justice.
This follows a call by Chief Justice Mandisa Maya to move away from using only English as the language of record in our courts.
Speaking at the International Association of Forensic Linguistics and Legal Conference at the University of the Western Cape last week, Maya said that language barriers can lead to unfair trials and limit access to justice for ordinary people.
The board's CEO, Lance Schultz, says court proceedings held in the language understood by the accused and victims are fundamental to upholding people's constitutional rights.
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" Section 35, subsection three of the South African Constitution. It actually guarantees the right to a fair trial, which includes the right to proceedings in a language that the accused understands.
“And if that's not practicable for them to have an interpreter, you've got over 91% of South Africans who don't speak English as their native language. Continued reliance really does disadvantage the majority of our people."
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