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Accommodating persons with severe communication disabilities in court : development and appraisal of guidelines

Thesis (PhD (Augmentative and Alternative Communication))--University of Pretoria, 2021.

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Other Authors: Bornman, Juan, 1968-
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: University of Pretoria 2021
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access_status_str Open Access
author2 Bornman, Juan, 1968-
author_browse Bornman, Juan, 1968-
author_facet Bornman, Juan, 1968-
collection Thesis
dc_rights_str_mv © 2019 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria.
description Thesis (PhD (Augmentative and Alternative Communication))--University of Pretoria, 2021.
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language English
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license_str Other — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository
publishDate 2021
publishDateRange 2021
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publisher University of Pretoria
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spelling oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/82646 Accommodating persons with severe communication disabilities in court : development and appraisal of guidelines Bornman, Juan, 1968- robynwilson13@gmail.com Johnson, Ensa White, Robyn May persons with severe communication disabilities human rights court accommodations guidelines UCTD Thesis (PhD (Augmentative and Alternative Communication))--University of Pretoria, 2021. Persons with severe communication disabilities often face violations of their basic human rights, such as exclusion from the justice system. Accessing the justice system – whether as a witness, defendant or legal practitioner with a severe communication disability – is extremely challenging. These individuals also face intersectional discrimination based on several interacting personal characteristics (for example, being a woman with a severe communication disability), which exacerbates the challenges they experience when needing to access the justice system. One significant barrier in this regard is the lack of court accommodations that are (or should be) made available to them. Not only is this an obstacle for the primary stakeholder group, but secondary stakeholders (e.g., attorneys, judges, magistrates and other legal practitioners) are often unaware of these accommodations. To rectify this problem, a human rights framework incorporating procedural justice principles (having a voice; being treated with respect; using neutral criteria for decision making; understanding the court language) was used, together with a three-phase mixed methods social justice research design (using a sequential exploratory design). The study included 78 participants (many with disabilities themselves) and aimed to develop and appraise guidelines for court accommodations. These should be provided to persons with severe communication disabilities to allow their equal participation in the court system and achieve access to justice, irrespective of their role or country of jurisdiction. Phase 1, the Qualitative Engagement Phase, aimed to identify existing court accommodations and entailed a legal scoping review of the extant literature, focus group sessions with South African and international experts, as well as online interviews with legal practitioners with disabilities. Thereafter, the qualitative findings from Phase 1 were triangulated and integrated with those of Phase 2, the Quantitative Feature Phase, and court accommodation guidelines were developed (using procedural justice principles). Finally, in Phase 3, the Quantitative Test Phase, the court accommodation guidelines were appraised by legal experts using a custom-developed appraisal tool known as the Court Accommodation Guideline Appraisal Tool (CAGAT). Overall, the quality of the court accommodation guidelines was rated as very good and excellent which the legal experts would recommend (some with modifications), and the guidelines were deemed to be a trustworthy resource to be implemented in the court system. The study concluded by suggesting that future research could focus on customising the court accommodation guidelines per specific stakeholder group (e.g., primary stakeholders (witness, defendant) and secondary stakeholders (judge, attorney)) and per country’s jurisdictions. The National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS) in collaboration with the South African Humanities Deans Association (SAHUDA) Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC) PhD (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) Unrestricted 2021-11-11T06:49:37Z 2021-11-11T06:49:37Z 2022-04 2021-11-01 Thesis White, RM., 2021. Accommodating persons with severe communication disabilities in court: Development and appraisal of guidelines. PhD thesis. University of Pretoria, Pretoria, yyyymmdd http://hdl.handle.net/2263/82646 A2022 http://hdl.handle.net/2263/82646 en © 2019 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. application/pdf University of Pretoria
spellingShingle persons with severe communication disabilities
human rights
court
accommodations
guidelines
UCTD
Accommodating persons with severe communication disabilities in court : development and appraisal of guidelines
title Accommodating persons with severe communication disabilities in court : development and appraisal of guidelines
title_full Accommodating persons with severe communication disabilities in court : development and appraisal of guidelines
title_fullStr Accommodating persons with severe communication disabilities in court : development and appraisal of guidelines
title_full_unstemmed Accommodating persons with severe communication disabilities in court : development and appraisal of guidelines
title_short Accommodating persons with severe communication disabilities in court : development and appraisal of guidelines
title_sort accommodating persons with severe communication disabilities in court development and appraisal of guidelines
topic persons with severe communication disabilities
human rights
court
accommodations
guidelines
UCTD
url http://hdl.handle.net/2263/82646