Áncash High CourtA court in northern Peru has won nationwide praise by issuing the first ruling written entirely in Quechua, the language of the Inca Empire.
The dispute concerned a personal injury claim that the two parties agreed to settle in the Court of Peace in the city of Huaraz, a magistrate court that hears minor cases.
‘Access to justice’
Quechua, or Runa Simi, was the language of the mighty Inca Empire, which ruled much of the north-western part of South America until the the Spanish conquest in the 16th century.
It survives in the mountain regions, where its four main varieties are spoken by up to 10 million people from Ecuador in the north to Argentina in the south – and most of them in Peru.
Quechua has had official status in Peru since 1975, but is still largely a spoken rather than written language, heard far more often in rural areas than in the media or courts of law.
Dr Granados Guerrero also made the news last September, when he passed the first sentence in Quechua officially recorded in a court in Áncash Region, and announced that the High Court intended to extend Quechua-language services at all judicial levels.
The magistrate’s latest and more ambitious achievement has been praised in Peru’s mainstream and social media.
Some social-media users think it is a good start, but insist that there is more to be done.“Can they take calls?” in Quechua, one commentator wrote on the High Court’s Facebook page, noting that one ruling does not mean that Quechua-speakers can get justice in their own language all the time.
Frédéric Soltan/Corbis/Getty ImagesReporting by Martin Morgan
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