Justice Beyond Language: Ensuring Legal Access for Linguistic Minorities in the Chattogram Hill Tracts

Abstract

The linguistic minorities in Chattogram hill tracts are facing challenges to access to justice due to their language barrier. While discussing the challenges in Bangladesh, the terms like linguistic minority are hardly defined. For that reason, since they are not defined, fundamental obstacles they face, e.g., lack of interpreters. The status of minorities all over the world has become a matter of discrimination. Bangladesh holds the same situation. There are still some initiatives that need to be performed, even though the current government has made several significant advancements in mainstreaming the minority languages. In order to guarantee the equitable status of minority languages and the freedom to use and practice them in all spheres of public life, academic endeavor, and in legal proceedings, the Constitution may be amended to include them. Constitutional support for minority ethnic languages will contribute to the promotion and maintenance of underrepresented ethnic identity. Additionally, these actions will not only benefit the minority ethnic groups' languages but also help to integrate them into society as a whole. These initiatives will be crucial to Bangladesh's efforts to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and realize the vision 2040 established by the current government. Everyone has the right to a fair trial, which is an essential part of establishing the rule of law. The rule of law frustrates when the fundamental obstacle to get justice is ‘language’. For the purpose of this paper, I will focus on linguistic minorities living in CHT, their obstacles to access to justice, and the necessity of an interpreter to ensure justice.