Discrimination and Access to Justice in Africa
Language, Vulnerability and Social Inclusion in Southern and Eastern Africa
Paul Svongoro editor Wellman Kondowe editor
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
Publishing:23rd May '25
£145.00
This title is due to be published on 23rd May, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
There are different forms of discrimination. Among others, people can be discriminated against on the basis of their ethnic grouping, political affiliation, race, gender, age, and language. This book focuses on linguistic discrimination in Africa, acknowledging that language plays a key role in the delivery of justice and much of what transpires in justice systems deals with language use. It argues that to achieve fairness, the state has a responsibility to put in place accommodations aimed at reducing linguistic vulnerability. The collection interrogates some of the issues that are common in Africa, which is arguably one of the most linguistically diverse continents in the world, bringing together a collection of case studies from: Malawi, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia. It presents practical insights from academics, legal professionals and social scientists. Divided into five thematic parts, the first addresses communication and linguistic challenges faced by children in the legal system. Part II examines the position of witnesses with physical challenges. The third part focuses on refugees, asylum seekers, and unrepresented litigants. Part IV looks at the language of the court as a major barrier to the poor and the illiterate. The fifth and final part examines the position of women in sexual assault cases. The collection will be of interest to academics, researchers and policy-makers working in the areas of Law and Language, Human Rights law, Criminology, Linguistics and African Studies.
The law can only exert its normative, regulatory and justice-administering functions if there is equal access to the law by all groups of the population. The collection of chapters offered in this volume is a most welcome addition to the growth of the discipline. The book deals with real-life, concrete, and specific types of barriers to such access on the African continent. Most importantly, the analyses are carried out by scholars from the very same area with relevant inside knowledge. These “regional” aspects put the book in a class of works with the same aspects of “regional” orientation as Manual of Romance Forensic Linguistics (Guillen Nieto and Stein; Walter DeGruyter). This is a timely publication from Africa.
Professor Dieter A. Stein
Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf
GERMANY
This book is ground-breaking and provides practical research insights needed to ensure African legal systems are linguistically inclusive and non-discriminatory. This book focusses on vulnerable witnesses making it an important contribution to the ongoing research in forensic linguistics. The chapter contributions expose the legal and linguistic inequalities within various legal systems, while offering practical solutions. This is a must-read for forensic and legal linguists, students, legal practitioners and judicial officers interested in language and the law.
Zakeera Docrat (PhD)
University of the Western Cape
SOUTH AFRICA
The variety of themes covered by this book demonstrates the extent forensic linguistics is firmly establishing itself as a field of scientific inquiry in multilingual Sub-Saharan Africa. This is a must-read contribution in the field, in its broadest meaning, and the engaged scholars from the various Southern and Eastern African countries have managed to bring to the general readers a clear picture of the challenges posed by language issues in the justice system.
Associate Professor Eliseu Mabasso
Eduardo Mondlane University
MOZAMBIQUE
ISBN: 9781032942087
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
336 pages