Pretoria - A divorce summons issued in Sepedi is not an everyday occurrence in the courts, but a couple are adamant that they want their court documents issued in their mother tongue.
Their lawyer, Tshepo Sebola, of the law firm Maluleke, Seriti, Makhume and Matlala Inc, said Sepedi was one of the 11 official languages of this country and his clients thus had the right to have summons issued in their language in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria.
“It is permissible to do this. As far as I know, it has not been done before in this court. This will not be the last from our office. Our indigenous languages need to be recognised,” Sebola told the Pretoria News.
Sebola and his team were not sure what to expect of presiding Judge Bill Prinsloo. But the judge did not need to deal with the language dilemma, as one of the parties to the divorce was ill and the matter had to be postponed.
The judge did not comment or react as he looked at the file.
Language rights activist, lawyer Cerneels Lourens, who has scored several language victories over the years, said it would be preferable if such a matter was allocated to a judge who spoke the language in which the legal documents had been issued.
One of the victories scored by Lourens over the years was to compel the government to serve the public in all the official languages.
“A person is entitled to be served by the courts in his or her mother tongue. There are more than enough judges who can deal with matters in the various languages.
“These type of cases should be allocated by the registrar to the judges who are fluent in that particular language. There should thus be a language management plan.”
The most commonly-used language in courts is English, Lourens said, but he knows about a judgment delivered in the past by Judge John Hlope, of the Western Cape, in isiXhosa.
Former acting judge Francois Botes agreed that it was everyone’s constitutional right to have their case heard in the language of their choice. He said while it may not always be practical, it is still a right. He recalled a case where legal documents were issued in Zulu, with proceedings conducted accordingly.
Pretoria News