Book contents
- Language and Justice
- Language and Justice
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- 1Introduction
- Part ICommunication and Legal Process
- 2The Principle of Orality in County and Family Courts
- 3Linguistic Rituals in Faretta Waivers
- 4Navigating the Challenges of Legal Practice in Lawful Surveillance of Multilingual Communication
- 5Process, Procedure and Professional Practice in the Creation of Police Interview Evidence
- 6Evidence and Assessing Verbatim Transcription Quality of Black English and Standard American English
- 7Judicial Exceptionalism and the Potential for Misinterpretation
- 8Interpreting for Jurors and Defendants’ Right to a Fair Trial
- Part IICommunication and Legal Profession
- Index
- References
7 - Judicial Exceptionalism and the Potential for Misinterpretation
from Part I - Communication and Legal Process
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 February 2026
Book contents
- Language and Justice
- Language and Justice
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- 1Introduction
- Part ICommunication and Legal Process
- 2The Principle of Orality in County and Family Courts
- 3Linguistic Rituals in Faretta Waivers
- 4Navigating the Challenges of Legal Practice in Lawful Surveillance of Multilingual Communication
- 5Process, Procedure and Professional Practice in the Creation of Police Interview Evidence
- 6Evidence and Assessing Verbatim Transcription Quality of Black English and Standard American English
- 7Judicial Exceptionalism and the Potential for Misinterpretation
- 8Interpreting for Jurors and Defendants’ Right to a Fair Trial
- Part IICommunication and Legal Profession
- Index
- References
Summary
Individuals lack linguistic presence if they do not have sufficient proficiency in the language used by the court. Linguistic presence for these individuals is a critical procedural assumption, and failure to provide an interpreter during police interviews can inhibit procedural fairness in the criminal justice system. When judges in Australia assess confessional evidence from police interviews with non-native speakers of English, they often need to form opinions about defendants’ linguistic competence. In doing so, judges make assumptions about their own competence to decide matters which are usually in the province of language experts. They also make assumptions about their own imperviousness to bias, including implicit social biases. This chapter analyses Australian criminal cases which involved judicial consideration of individuals’ English language capacity. Our findings indicate that judicial exceptionalism may factor in decision-making and we argue that gatekeeping errors in determining defendants’ linguistic presence can compound systemic errors cascading from the police interview, and result in miscarriages of justice.
Keywords
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- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Language and JusticeCommunication in Legal Practice, pp. 97 - 112Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
References
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