راهنمای زبان‌های حقوقی و جستجوی برابری زبانی در آفریقای جنوبی و فراتر از آن

A handbook on Legal Languages and the quest for linguistic equality in South Africa and beyond is an interdisciplinary publication located in the discipline of forensic linguistics/ language and law. This handbook includes varying comparative African and global case studies on the use of language(s) in courtroom discourse and higher education institutions: Kenya; Morocco; Nigeria; Australia; Belgium Canada and India. These African and global case studies form the backdrop for the critique of the monolingual English language of record policy for South African courts, the core of this handbook, discussed in relation to case law and the beleaguered legal interpretation profession. This handbook argues that linguistic transformation and decolonisation of South Africa's legal and higher education systems needs to be undertaken where legal practitioners are linguistically equipped to litigate in a bilingual/ multilingual courtroom that enables access to justice for the majority of African language speaking litigants, enforcing their constitutional language rights. List of Figures 7 List of Tables 7 List of Acronyms and Abbreviations 9 Acknowledgements 12 About the Authors 13 Preface 15 Foreword 17 1: Introduction 22 Context of the research 22 Research area: forensic linguistics or language and law 28 Study area 30 Research problem 32 Goals of the research 35 Conclusion 36 2: The Language of Proceedings in Courts on the African Continent 37 International jurisprudence 37 Kenya’s sociolinguistic landscape 40 Nigeria’s sociolinguistic landscape 51 Morocco’s sociolinguistic landscape 63 Conclusion 69 3: Insights from International Case Studies on Language and Law 72 Australia’s sociolinguistic landscape 72 Belgium’s sociolinguistic landscape 85 Canadian sociolinguistic landscape 91 India’s sociolinguistic landscape 104 Conclusion 114 4: The Monolingual Language of Record in South African Courts 115 Defining the language of record 116 History of the language(s) of record in South African courts of law 118 Administrative law as an enabling framework 129 Language of record directive 133 The legality of the language of record directive 137 Interpretational rights and the failures of social justice 139 The problem with interpretation: quality versus efficacy 142 Conclusion 146 5: The Language Question in Legislative and Policy Instruments 148 The relationship between forensic linguistics and applied language studies 149 Defining language planning 151 Ideologies underpinning language planning in South Africa 158 Legislative drafting 163 Conclusion 177 6a: Part 1: South Africa's Constitutional Language Rights and Provisions 179 South African constitutional framework 179 South African constitutional language rights 182 The enforceability of the constitutional language framework 187 Section 35 imposing language or interpretational rights 190 6b: Part 2: Linguistic (In)equality in South Africa's Legal System 193 Language equality in the South African legal system 193 The limitations analysis: sliding scale formula 197 South African language demographics: statistics 198 English language limitations of South African litigants 208 Conclusion 212 7: The Language Question before Courts 214 South African case law 214 Conclusion 239 8: South Africa's Legal Practitioners and Judicial Officers 241 Legislative language requirements for legal practitioners 241 A transformed legal profession: Legal Practice Act 243 Legal professionals: racial demographics 244 Attorneys’ views on languages other than English 247 Conclusion 251 9: The Relationship between South Africa's Legal System and Higher Education Institutions 251 Language planning in higher education 253 Transformation and decolonisation 257 Higher education legislative and policy framework 260 Selected university language policies 262 A critique of selected university language policies 272 The language question at selected universities 278 Language as part of the LLB curriculum 279 Analysis of the higher education language policy cases 283 Conclusion 285 10: Conclusions and Recommendations 287 Introduction 287 Overview 287 Recommendations 289 Conclusion 301 References 305