Language Rights of European Minorities in the Administration of Justice, Public Administration and Public Services

Abstract

This article provides an overview of European minorities’ language rights in the administration of justice, public administration, and public services in 2019. Relevant legal developments are presented in the activities of the major international organizations, i.e. the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the European Union, and the Council of Europe. Since the most relevant treaties on the language rights of minorities in Europe are the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, special attention is paid to the implementation thereof. Whereas international monitoring mechanisms devoted to the effective protection of minorities are abundant, language rights of national minorities receive less attention, especially in the fields of official language use, that is, in public administration and justice. The regulation of these areas has been traditionally considered as almost exclusively belonging to the states’ competence, and international organizations are consequently reluctant to interfere. As a result, the official use of minority languages differs in the various countries of Europe, with both good practices (e.g. the Netherlands, Spain, Finland) and unbalanced situations (e.g. Estonia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan).