Addressing delegates at the International Association of Forensic Linguistics and Legal conference, partly hosted at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa’s Chief Justice, Judge Mandisa Maya, said a directive by former Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Michael Masutha that English remains the language of record for South Africa’s courts should be revisited.
Speaking on the first day of the biennial conference, Judge Maya said language plays a pivotal role in the access to justice for ordinary South Africans.
Masutha’s edict was an attempt to standardise legal records and improve access to justice, but numerous speakers at the conference criticised the decision.
“Effective communication between judicial officers regarding legal representatives, support staff, witnesses…to ensure better understanding of the court processes. Language is therefore a critical element of access to justice,” said Judge Maya.
Throughout the week, delegates participated in numerous discussions on the law, language, courtroom discourse, gender-based violence, and other related topics.
Dr Zakeera Docrat, a post-doctoral research fellow – under the auspices of the UWC Chair in Forensic Linguistics and Multilingualism – in forensic linguistics at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), one of the organisers of the conference, said she was relieved at how smooth everything went.
She said the Chief Justice Maya’s speech was “explosive” and that the conference was not merely a talkshop but would inform future policies of South Africa’s Office of the Chief Justice.
“She spoke openly and honestly about the challenges that the judiciary is facing from a point of language and what needs to be done, and also acknowledging the academic voice and the work we’re doing in our spaces to improve the language of record policy, to contribute to those discussions and possible changes in the future.
“I think that was significant. I think the fact that this is the first conference to have a chief justice in attendance, and for me, her very presence at the conference, shows the support coming through from the judiciary and the academic voice and the judiciary from a point of practice on not speaking past each other,” said Dr Docrat.
Chairperson of UWC’s Department of African Language Studies, Prof Russell Kaschula, welcomed the Chief Justice and said her presence at the conference gave participants a very clear message, in terms of multilingualism, language, and law. He also expressed his gratitude to UWC’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Academic, Prof Monwabisi Ralarala, who had been supportive of the University’s forensic linguistics programme.
“This has been a relationship with many facets, in terms of a multilingual, multicultural society. Monolingualism is a disease that can be cured,” said Prof Kaschula.
Prof Ralarala said the conference, being hosted for the first time on the African continent, was important in an era when issues like social, and transformative justice are being tackled.
“Language sits at the centre of anything that we do, especially if we are considering legal practice, from the point of view of social justice. We cannot move, if most people, especially in this country, are not really receiving access to justice through the languages that they speak which are provided for in the Constitution.”
He added that Masutha’s 2017 decision did not serve South Africa well.
“We need to move away from this idea that we can do better through the medium of English. That knowledge, or intelligence, can only be accessed through the medium of English. People can speak, and people must speak, their languages freely, especially in the judiciary,” said Prof Ralarala.
Delivering her keynote address on the fourth day of the conference, Dr Cecilia Brown-Blake said the United Nations’ Durban Declaration, following the World Conference Against Racism and Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance, said her aim was to situate language and the Commonwealth Caribbean’s linguistic heritage in the reparations narrative.
“The UN Durban Declaration and its companion programme of action recognises language as one factor that discrimination and urged states to ensure that victims have the right to reparation for such discrimination,” said Dr Brown-Blake, who is a senior academic at the University of the West Indies at Mona, in Jamaica.
From her own experience in the Caribbean, language has been on the fringe of the reparations agenda. Her talk delved into the nature of linguistic damage, emanating from the colonial project in the Caribbean, along with the contours of that linguistic scarring.
Dr Brown-Blake said the devastation of indigenous, pre colonial languages was exceptional, including the erasure of cultural identity.
“The UNESCO expert group on endangered languages has said that every time a language dies, we have less evidence for understanding patterns in the structure and function of human language, human prehistory and the maintenance of the world’s diverse ecosystems,” said Dr Brown-Blake.
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