Language rights and duties in domestic and european courts

Abstract

Language is probably the most distinctive sign of a national culture, and it has recently become the object of laws and judicial decisions. The question of linguistic groups is normally associated with that of minorities. As far as 'old' minorities are concerned, for whom territories sometimes coincide with sub-state entities, the legislation of this territorial level has shown to be the most adequate to fulfil the need of linguistic groups. Thus the cases of Catalan in Spain and German (and Ladin) in South Tyrol have to be considered as instances of strong protection of regional languages, even if they show relevant differences in the spirit of the two sets of legislation. Instances of weaker protection through regional legislation and regulation are illustrated with the cases of Corsican in France and Slovenian in Italy. There are also cases of State legislation on linguistic issues with the same features of sub-state legislation: the cases of the protection of the official language in France and Latvia are typical examples. The difference lies in the international prestige of French, which Latvian cannot share; nevertheless the idea of defending the State languages from other languages leads to similar 'defensive' measures. A reasonable balance between the individual and collective dimension has to be found: this aim has constantly been the compass that has guided the courts in the relevant cases described in the paper.