‘What you've got is a right to silence’
Publication: The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law
Volume 28, Number 1
Abstract
In the Northern Territory of Australia (NT), it has long been recognised that the right to silence ‘caution’ is difficult to communicate, particularly with some Aboriginal suspects. This article reviews paraphrases used by NT police to explain the right, asking how they could be understood by Aboriginal people and offering initial conclusions about the meaning of paraphrases involving choice, rights and force. Meanwhile, the consequences of staying silent are consistently omitted from police paraphrases, highlighting that suspects must recover important meaning from context. This article argues that a significant source of contextual knowledge about the caution is discourses about rights, which are a complex and culture-specific way of thinking and talking. There is every risk that suspects without required contextual knowledge fail to obtain anything useful from many versions of the caution, a situation which likely entrenches disadvantage in the justice system. To communicate the caution across a large cultural gap requires specifying more meaning, but only policy-makers can decide what information the caution is supposed to communicate and what effect it is supposed to have. Evaluation of potential cautions should ask whether they are comprehensible, informative and credible and ultimately what effect they have for relevant audiences.
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Published In
The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law
Volume 28 • Number 1 • 2021
Pages: 1 - 29
History
Published in print: 2021
Published online: 4 November 2024
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The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 2021 28:1, 1-29
The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 2021 28:1, 1-29