Discrimination and Access to Justice in Africa

Wellman Kondowe is a senior lecturer in the Department of Language, Cultural and Creative Studies at Mzuzu University in Malawi.Paul Svongoro is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of Botswana and a research fellow in the Africa Languages Department of the University of South Africa.

• Discrimination and access to Justice in Africa, by Wellman Kondowe & Paul Svongoro THEME 1 CHILDREN IN THE LEGAL SYSTEM Chapter 1: Child Witness Protection during Criminal Proceedings: The Law, Practice and Challenges in Zambia, by Kamo Msimuko Simfukwe Chapter 2: Linguistic barriers to access to justice by child victims and witnesses of sexual assault in Malawi’s justice system, by Shyreen Odala Chirwa Chapter 3: Silent victims of the law: Children and the legal system in post-colonial Zimbabwe, by Vincent Chenzi Chapter 4: The application of language and procedural entitlements of children in detention in Malawi, by Dorothy nyaKaunda Kamanga THEME 2 WITNESSES WITH PHYSICAL CHALLENGES Chapter 5: Whose access to justice? Civil Procedure Rules and the Right of Access to Justice for Persons with Disability in the High Court of Malawi, by Thokozani Soko and Wellman Kondowe Chapter 6: Intoxication, memory and credibility: Intoxicated witnesses and suspects as a vulnerable group in Zimbabwe’s justice system, by Paul Svongoro & Stanley Madonsela Chapter 7: Vulnerability of girls with communication disorders in the Malawian criminal justice system, by Wellman Kondowe, Evans Lwara & Hajira Blamu Mitumba Chapter 8: Communication barriers faced by deaf citizens when accessing police services in Zimbabwe, by Tawanda Matende, Patson Kufakunesu & Victor Mugari THEME 3 LANGUAGE AS A BARRIER IN ACCESS TO JUSTICE Chapter 9: Sign Language and the Law in Zambia: Promoting Equal Access to Justice for a Linguistic and Cultural Minority, by Gabriel Simungala & Humphrey Kapau Chapter 10: Challenges of foreign language and migrant workers in South African Courts: A critical examination of Linguistic Justice, by Josephat Mutangadura & Tebogo J. Rakgogo Chapter 11: Foreign language speakers, migrants and refugees in Kenyan courts, by Joyce Kasili & Lydia Anyonje Chapter 12: Legal Status of Malawi Sign Language: Implications on Language Rights and Access to Justice for the Deaf, by Martin Zoloni & Deborah Ndalama-Mtawali THEME 4 THE POOR AND THE ILLITERATE BEFORE THE COURTS OF LAW Chapter 13: Legal interpretation and the dilemma of the poor and illiterate as accused and witnesses in Malawi’s courtrooms, by Jones Hamburu Mawerenga & Godwins Lwinga Chapter 14: Access to justice by unrepresented litigants in Zimbabwe’s courtrooms, by Paul Svongoro & Ndlovu Eventhough Chapter 15: The impact of litigants’ socio-economic status on the delivery of justice: The Plight of the Poor and Illiterate in Zimbabwe's Rural Magistrate Courts, by Josephat Mutangadura & Felistus Tafadzwa Makumbe THEME 5 WOMEN IN SEXUAL ASSAULT CASES Chapter 16: Rape myths in written judicial opinions from the Tanzanian Court of Appeal, by Patricia Muraguri, Emmanuel Satia & Simon Nganga Chapter 17: Ethical journalism practise in Zvinoyera, zvinotyisa uye zvinoda kufumurwa’s coverage of allegations of abuse of women and children against Madzibaba Ishmael, by Witness Roya.

"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."— Dieter A. Stein, Professor, 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."— Eliseu Mabasso, Associate Professor, Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique