Legal transcription service in the light of access to justice in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ Regional State (SNNPRS) judicial system
| Published date | 01 July 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13657127231217774 |
| Author | Mengistu Dinato Didena |
| Date | 01 July 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Legal transcription service in the
light of access to justice in the
Southern Nations, Nationalities and
Peoples’Regional State (SNNPRS)
judicial system
Mengistu Dinato Didena
English language and literature, Hawassa University, Hawassa, Ethiopia
Abstract
This paper focuses on the serious but not well-acknowledged problem related to legal tran-
script production in SNNPRS High Courts. It sheds light on how distortions of content are
made in the testimonies of witnesses to the extent they may affect the legal evidential purpose
transcripts could serve. Textual data were collected through audio-recording of court pro-
ceedings, review of legal transcripts and interviews. The findings indicated that legal transcrip-
tion is conducted by employees who had qualification in computer science, but no training in
legal transcription and the role that transcripts have in the judicial process. The High Courts of
the region employ unilingual and inter-lingual modes of transcription, depending on whether
limited court language-proficient witnesses who testify in their native tongue are provided
with a court interpreter or not. Major language use problems that are observed in the legal
transcripts were found to be attributable to lack of training, and lack of awareness on the
part of judges, the judicial system and legal transcribers.
Keywords
access to justice, inter-lingual transcription, judicial system, language use problem, legal
transcription
Introduction
One of the language services in the judicial process is legal transcription, which is concerned with the
keeping of a written record of spoken interactions. The transcription of legal proceedings, although an
expensive and slow process, is very important to enable access to justice (Saadany et al., 2022),
Corresponding author:
Mengistu Dinato Didena, English language and literature, Hawassa University, Hawassa, Ethiopia.
Email: medidi10@gmail.com
Article
The International Journal of
Evidence & Proof
2024, Vol. 28(3) 181–202
© The Author(s) 2024
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/13657127231217774
journals.sagepub.com/home/epj
which is fundamental for the enjoyment and fulfillment of all human rights. Guaranteeing access to
justice is indispensable to democratic governance and the rule of law, as well as to combating inequality
and exclusion (International Principles and Guidelines on Access to Justice for Persons with Disabilities,
2020). However, this process of keeping written records of spoken interactions is often given minimal
scrutiny from the institutions which consume them (Richardson et al., 2022).
In a multilingual Ethiopia, Amharic language served as a medium of communication for the unitary
states since the time of Emperor Tewodros II (r. 1855–1868) up until the time of Derg (r. 1974–1991)
(Bahru, 1991: 140). The production of legal transcripts in its current form is related, one way or
another, to the historical role Amharic has in the judicial process of the country. Although the use of
Amharic as the only official national language and medium of communication in school education, pol-
itical administration and court litigation is no more in force, it is still used as the official language in some
regional states and the two city administrations of the country.
The quest for seeing Ethiopia as a multicultural state in which there is an equal recognition of the
nationalities to their culture, religion and language led to the long years’struggle which resulted in
the change of government in 1991 when EPRDF
1
came to power. The new constitution of the FDRE
1995 recognised the country’s diverse ethnic and religious groups through the creation of member
states with laws and judicial systems that mirror each region’s specific ethnic and religious customs
(Dakolias, 2004: ix). The EPRDF followed a federal arrangement which is composed of a federal gov-
ernment, nine regional states and two city administrations.
2
Moreover, the constituents of the federal arrangement were designed to have their own largely inde-
pendent legal systems made up of legislative, executive and judicial organs with corresponding powers
that they would exercise on matters placed in their jurisdictions under the Constitution (FDRE
Constitution: Articles 50(2), 52(2) and 78).
In the SNNPRS, which hosts some 56 linguistic groups, the current study tried to investigate the prac-
tice of legal transcription to see how the linguistic diversity has shaped the legal transcription practices of
the judicial system. In the SNNPRS High Courts, limited-Amharic-proficient (LAP)
3
clients face diffi-
culty in participating fully in the courtroom communication. In accordance with this, the High Courts
in the state (and other states as well) provide LAP clients with court interpreters. They also use audio-
recording machines to record all court proceedings so that they are transcribed and enable the judges
use the transcripts to get full message of the clients for decisions they make on the cases they handle.
Although the introduction of legal transcription service is one step ahead in the effort to realise access
to justice of accused persons, and to ensure effective communication in the judicial process, the mere
existence of the service is not an end by itself. Ensuring the quality of the service in terms of realising
accused persons’access to justice is critically important.
The FDRE Constitution has declared that ‘Amharic shall be the working language of the Federal
Government’, and promised that all other ‘Ethiopian languages shall enjoy equal state recognition’.
Moreover, it has declared that ‘Members of the Federation may by law determine their respective
working languages’(FDRE Constitution: Article 5). As a result, Amharic was chosen as the
working language of the Amhara, SNNP, Benishangul-Gumuz and Gambella Regional States, and
of the Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa City Administrations since they accommodate different ethno-
linguistic groups with varying population size. Oromiya, Tigray, Somali and Afar chose
Afan Oromo, Tigrigna, Somali and Afar languages, respectively, as their working languages
1. Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front, the ruling party of Ethiopian government before the reform of 2018.
2. The nine regions are Tigray, Afar, Amhara, Oromia, Somali, Benishangul-Gumuz, Gambella, Harari and the SNNPRS (Southern
Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Regional State), and the two city administrations are Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa (FDRE
Constitution: Articles 46–52).
3. LAP refers to court clients who are not proficient enough to effectively communicate in Amharic, the language of courtroom
communication in High Courts of the state where Amharic is the working language.
182 The International Journal of Evidence & Proof 28(3)
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