Deputy Justice Minister Andries Nel says incorporating indigenous knowledge and languages into court proceedings can help members of the public better understand legal terms that are often difficult to comprehend.
Nel was delivering a lecture at the University of Mpumalanga on Tuesday on how language shapes meaningful access to justice and why indigenous African languages should be developed beyond interpretation into languages of legal education, adjudication and jurisprudence.
He says this can be achieved by introducing indigenous legal language development to law students at higher education institutions.
Nel says, “In that regard I also spoke about policies, language policies from the Department of Justice about the fact that we have 1900 court interpreters, furthermore a list of Ad Hoc interpreters that are more than 500 000 people. I emphasised the importance of interpretation to ensure that people understand their rights, that those on trial receive a fair trial, but I also said that we need to go beyond just interpreting to developing indigenous languages to the languages of jurisprudence. In that regard, we spoke about the partnership that the department can enter with the University of Mpumalanga,” Nel says.
Meanwhile, some law students at the university say the initiative could improve their understanding of constitutional law while making legal terminology more accessible to communities.
One student says, “My highlight for the event today was the practical steps where being introduced, whereby it was said that dialogues are going to be held between judges, academic students and legal practitioners so that the notion can be brought forward and made practical…”
Another student says, “And most people, especially those who live in the rural areas in South Africa in KZN and here in Mpumalanga they don’t know the law that governs them they don’t understand the law and most of them were disadvantaged by the apartheid era, they didn’t get proper education and that’s bad because it disadvantages them, they don’t understand the law so to make us study the law in our African languages in makes to be part of the system.”
