Use of English in Nepalese Court

Abstract

The study was aimed at finding out the extent to which English isused in theNepalese courts and reasons for using English in the court.Nepalese courts are found to have not only used Nepali terms during theadvocacies and other legal process. The lawyers and judges use Englishterms in the courts while interpreting and advocating their cases.Various causes stand as the factors to lead the courts to use Englishterms. Some of the lawyers have foreign university background besideonly the Nepalese University graduates. The references is to the legalconcerns are more widely available in the English language incomparison with the Nepali language. Having prepared a set of questionnaire, the researcher visited theSupreme Court and law campus to collect information. The researcherdistributed the same set of question to different respondents as thenumber required. Then different case hearing and advocacies wereobserved. Using the above tools and methodology, this study came to thefollowing findings. The English is used in advocacies in the courts inorder to impress the judgesand audiences. The lawyers feel themselvesprestigious when they use English. One of the reasons for using theEnglish is lack of related sources in other than English language andhabituatedness of lawyers in using the English words. During theadvocaciesthe English terms seem to be more pinpointing ones than theNepali translated legal terms. Because of the growing mode ofglobalization in each and every walk of life, the impact of the English ispervading. As a consequence of these circumstances Nepalese courts usemajority of the legal technical terms in English language.