Court accommodations for persons with severe communication disabilities : a legal scoping review

Abstract

For persons with severe communication disabilities to be given access to justice, transformative equality and court accommodations should be made a global human rights priority as articulated in Article 13 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. However, these individuals, face significant barriers when attempting to access the court system. Currently, there are numerous concerns about what accommodations should be afforded these individuals to ensure transformative equality in court. The aim of the current legal scoping review was to identify the range of documented court accommodations internationally that will enable persons with severe communication disabilities to participate equally and without discrimination in court. As the research aim is placed at the nexus of social sciences and law, a rigorous new 5-step framework were developed. Search terms were entered into eight databases following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis guidelines in order to ensure a worldwide sample of data. From the included 54 publications, a total of 302 accommodations were identified. Using an inductive coding approach, these accommodations were categorized according to the four components of the procedural justice framework: 62% of the accommodations referred to the ‘Respect’ component; 27,40% referred to ‘Voice’; 19,47% to ‘Understanding’; and 15,51% to ‘Neutrality.’ Accommodations with the highest frequency count were the use of intermediaries, permitting augmentative and alternative communication, ensuring appropriate and proper questioning strategies, allowing frequent breaks, including CCTV in court, and using expert witnesses.