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“Do you understand these charges?”: How procedural communication in youth criminal justice court violates the rights of young offenders in Canada

Abstract This paper considers Canada’s young offenders in the context from which they enter the youth criminal courtroom. To determine how youth criminal justice courts violate the Canadian Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA), this analysis relates said context to several phenomena, including legal linguistics, oral language competency, literacy, communicative competency, non-verbal communication, the physical structure of youth courtrooms, and legal translation (Government of Canada eds. 2018. Youth criminal justice act. Ottawa: Government of Canada.). As a result of the standards of procedural communication upheld by the Canadian criminal justice system, young people’s rights, including the right to be respected regardless of cultural, ethnic, or linguistic differences, the right to be heard and to participate in proceedings, the right to be sentenced meaningfully, the right to privacy, and the right to be tried in a timely manner are abused in the youth criminal courtroom. Although insufficient structures of procedural communication cause these issues and are beyond the control of counsel, defense counsel are often blamed for their effects. Legal professionals must make important adjustments such as altering the formal speech required in youth criminal courtrooms, employing legal professionals with the role of translating legal jargon to young people in the courtroom, and closing youth courtrooms off from the public to reduce the YCJA violations occurring in youth criminal justice court. These adjustments are ultimately the responsibility of the Canadian criminal justice system.