Legal setback in quest for subtitles for TV broadcasts

IN A BLOW for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, the National Council of and for Persons with Disabilities (NCPD) has lost yet another legal battle in its bid to make South African television more accessible for those with hearing problems.

- ZELDA VENTER

The organisation earlier took the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) to the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, to have its Code for Persons with Disabilities Regulations 2021 reviewed and set aside.

When it lost its high court bid, the NCPD turned to the Supreme Court of Appeal, which on Friday also ruled against it.

In its legal battle to make television more inclusive for those with hearing problems, the NCPD pointed out that in South Africa, the use of a sign language interpreter has been adopted to portray broadcasts to sign language users.

However, the limitation to the use of a sign language interpreter in television news broadcasts is that the majority of persons with hearing loss neither understand nor use sign language as a means of communication. This group includes the elderly — one in three people over the age of 65 and two in three over the age of 70.