A Rhodes University student’s thesis which advocates for fair inclusion of African languages in the SA legal system has been recognised by the African Languages Association of Southern Africa.
In her master’s thesis, African languages PhD student Zakeera Docrat, 27, argued for African languages to be used as a tool to transform SA’s legal system – and the country at large.
Docrat, who is Indian with a fluent command of Xhosa, learnt the language as a compulsory subject in primary school and chose it as her second language in high school.
Knowledge acquired from a combination of qualifications in African languages and law studies opened her eyes to the disadvantage of using English as the primary language in legal proceedings.
As one of her recommendations, Docrat argues that three provincial languages of each province be adopted into a language policy that will govern the courts in the respective provinces.
The thesis received the “Most Outstanding MA Thesis in Southern Africa in the Area of African Languages” award.
“Attorneys, advocates, judges, magistrates are not required to learn an African language and I have a problem with that,” Docrat said.
“If the majority of people in your province speak an African language or Afrikaans, why are we promoting an English-driven system?
“We have the majority of people in our country communicating in African languages and yet our legal system is premised in English and that is unfair and unjust because it prohibits access to justice.”
Docrat was born and bred in Grahamstown (now Makhanda) where she took Xhosa as a school subject at the Diocesan School for Girls.
She then joined Rhodes University to pursue studies in African languages and later law.
“My parents speak Xhosa and my mother owned a business in which customers would always speak to me in Xhosa.
“And at school [my teacher] always placed an emphasis on the importance of language, culture and how language can be used as a tool for social cohesion in South Africa. So that’s really where the intellectualisation of it began,” she said.
Arguing that meaning is at risk of getting lost in translation when English is the primary medium of communication in the legal system, Docrat said: “I am arguing that you don’t have a language right as a litigant, you have an interpretational right and that puts you at a disadvantage . . . being heard through a third person changes what you are saying.
“I’m not arguing to get rid of the English language and interpretation but in instances where everybody is competent in [a] specific language, let us proceed in that language.
“It saves costs, it’s efficient and it enforces a language right,” she said.
“The issue with us in South Africa is that we problematise language rather than see it as a right and a resource.
“We try and make every excuse as to why it won’t work. [We claim that] it’s too difficult, we can’t expect [all] attorneys to graduate with an African language – but why not?”
In September, Docrat, along with other language activists and academics, penned an open letter in response to the heads of courts’ decision to make English the only language of record in South African courts.
Although chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng later clarified that South Africans will continue to be allowed to speak African languages in court, Docrat argues that translating them to English can dilute meaning and place non-English speakers at a disadvantage.