South Africans react to English being only language of record in courts

This is one of the outcomes of a meeting between Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng and heads of superior courts on Friday. 

Mogoeng told the media that the decision is to ensure that appeal court judges are able to work efficiently. 

 "If you are going to insist that all 11 languages should be languages of record, it means if six people who speak different languages are litigants in the same case, the record must reflect the evidence of each in his or her languages. Meaning when the matter is appealed, the appeal court judges, whether they know all the languages or only one of them, will have before them all those languages. The question is how they are supposed to make sense of all those languages?" 

 He says this will ensure access to justice. 

 "It is the responsibility of the one who is unhappy with a judgement at a lower court level to make sure that the record is made available to the judges on appeal in the language they understand. Meaning, if you are financially under-resourced and you have this record either in this one language of in 5 languages, that poor person who only has so much money available to take his/her matter to appeal, must first exhaust his/her resources, paying translators into the language that will be understandable for judges on appeal. This will frustrate access to justice."

ALSO READ: South Africans have little faith in the criminal justice system

Mogoeng says South Africans will still be able to speak their mother tongue in the court of law. 

We took to the streets to hear how South Africans feel about this. 

 While some understand the circumstances, others feel it's unfair.