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Background: Persons with disabilities are generally at greater risk of experiencing violence than their peers without a disability. Within the sphere of disability, individuals with severe communication disabilities are particularly vulnerable and have an increased risk of being a victim of abuse or violence and typically turn to their country’s criminal justice system to seek justice. Unfortunately, victims with disabilities are often denied fair and equal treatment before the court. Transformative equality should be pursued when identifying accommodations in court for persons with communication disabilities, as the aim should be to enable such individuals to participate equally in court, without barriers and discrimination.

Objectives: This research aimed to identify court accommodations recommended by legal experts, which could assist individuals with severe communication disabilities in the South African court.

Method: A qualitative design was used to conduct a discussion with a panel of legal experts.

Results: Using Article 13 (Access to Justice) of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) as a human rights framework, four themes were identified: equality, accommodations, participation and training of professionals.

Conclusion: Foreign and national law clearly prohibits discrimination against persons with communication disabilities because of their disability and state that they should be given fair and equal access to the court system. For transformative equality to be achieved, certain rules and laws need to be changed to include specific accommodations for persons with communication disabilities so that they may be enabled to participate effectively in court in the criminal justice system.

African Journal of Disability, Vol 9, 2020

In the past nine years, the GIZ Sector Project ‘Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities’ has been supporting more than 30 programmes worldwide to include persons with disabilities in our efforts to improve good governance. This publication consolidates lessons learnt and offers guidance and tools around how to address disability in governance programming

These practical guidelines are designed to help policy makers and planners to create an effective national response to HIV prevention, by ensuring that their response matches the epidemic dynamics and social context within their country and the populations who remain most vulnerable to and at risk of HIV infection. The guidelines encourage countries to know the national and local epidemiological scenarios and their current response; to match and prioritise their response; to set ambitious, realistic and measurable prevention targets; to tailor prevention plans to local epidemic scenarios and to use and analyse strategic information

This is a practical manual about mental health care, aimed at community health workers, primary care nurses, social workers and primary care doctors. It describes more than 30 clinical problems associated with mental illness, using a problem-solving approach to guide the reader through their assessment and management. It addresses the lack of understanding of mental health among many health workers