The Balanced

Many people will tell you that reporting from the courts is not easy because of the language that the lawyers use. Some will say the language used in court is Latin. This is not correct. It is about misconception with regards to what transpires in the courts. At the courts, the lawyers and the judges speak in the English Language. At times, there are unfamiliar terms used in the court but you have to remember as a journalist you have the duty to ask the lawyers or the judge or magistrate to help you with the spellings and the meaning of words. This does not happen always. In fact, it happens occasionally. This post intends to take you through the common words used in court and give the simplest meaning to them. This is to help people understand the meaning and know how to use them in their reports. 1.      Plaintiff : A person who takes another person to court. The plaintiff is called the claimant. He is the one who is claiming for something before the co...

Magistrate's Court: The magistrate’s court has both criminal and civil jurisdiction. Their jurisdiction is also limited in one way or the other. For example, the laws oust the powers of the magistrate’s court to hear cases of economic crimes, rights violation etc. There are different classes of magistrates and each of the classes has a limitation. We will discuss this in detail in our subsequent post. Cadi Court: Their jurisdiction is limited sharia matters with regards to marriage, inheritance and divorce. We will discuss more on this. I will give the District Tribunal a special report. Let us now shift our attention to court reporting and what it entails. As a beginner in court reporting, you have to be zealous in reporting from the court. This means you have to have passion because without it you cannot be effective and you won’t be able to come up with good court stories. Without passion, you won’t be able to write good court stories. Let me take you through some...