Acceso usuarios
, M. Begoña López Portas
The end of the Franco regime paved the way for the restoration of democracy and home rule. This meant that Catalan was once again granted official status and that administrative and legal language, which under the Franco regime, had become another form of expression for the regime, was modernized. The model set up 25 years ago achieved a wide degree of acceptance and today no vestiges of the old administrative and legal language remain. The ongoing evolution of society, however, makes continuing reflection a must. Reflection is necessary to avoid falling into routines that may lead to a new gap between administrative and legal language and present-day social and linguistic reality.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CATALAN IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IN THE BALEARIC ISLANDS Bartomeu COLOM PASTOR The object of this paper is to analyze the situation of Catalan in the administration of justice in the Balearic Islands. To this end, the author examines the set of rules regulating the use of the two official languages in this domain and the standardization of Catalan. This set of standards is made up of the Constitution, the Statute of Autonomy, the Language Standardization Act, the Judiciary Act and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. The author concludes that the status derived from Article 231 of the Judiciary Act with respect to Catalan is halfway between that of an official government language and a foreign language. This is so because public servants do not have the obligation to be familiar with Catalan, citizens can assert their lack of knowledge of the language and proceedings in Catalan within the government itself are supposed to be translated. All of this contradicts the provisions of the Statute of Autonomy and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Normalization is an unresolved issue in this administration in this autonomous community, and an improvement of the situation may be achieved through the removal of those obstacles that prevent the citizenry from exercising their linguistic rights. Advancement may also come about through legislative reforms, chief among which would be requiring judges, magistrates and other public servants working for the judiciary to have a knowledge of the autochthonous languages of each autonomous community.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE PRINCIPLE OF LANGUAGE EQUALITY IN EUROPEAN UNION INSTITUTIONS AND IN COMMUNITY LAW: MYTH OR REALITY? Antoni MILIAN I MASSANA In this paper, the author poses the question of whether, in the European Union, the oft-proclaimed principal of language equality is a reality or just a myth. To answer this question, the first part of the article studies the origin, development and consolidation of the language regime of the European communities, a structure that at the same time constitutes the language regime for the European Union.
The second part of the paper sets out the language regime now in effect. The analysis of this regime makes it clear that a very pronounced linguistic hierarchy has taken shape within the European Union. The 11 official and working languages ¿ German, English, Spanish, Danish, Finnish, French, Greek, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese and Swedish -- are at the pinnacle of this hierarchy. Since these are not all the languages spoken historically within the European Union, the paper investigates what criteria have been applied to select these languages. The criteria can be stated as follows: all languages having official status within the territory of a member state without sharing it with another language become official and working languages of community institutions. When a member state recognizes more than one official language for the whole of its territory and it turns out that one of the languages already is an official and working language of community institutions by virtue of its official and working language status in another member state, the other languages do not acquire this status.
Nevertheless, while it may be customary to assert that the 11 languages enjoy a status of equality within the European Union, this is not true. Thus, for example, in European Community institutions, it is possible to observe a de jure equality among the 11 official and working languages, but this equality is not respected de facto: English is the predominant working language, followed by French. The language regime of the Central European Bank has meant not only a de jure, but also a de facto break with the principle of linguistic equality. The Bank¿s internal regulations distinguish between official languages and working languages. The 11 languages listed above are official languages; there is, however, only one working language: English. Another European Community body, the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market, expressly prioritizes five of the 11 official languages: German, English, Spanish, French and Italian. Unlike the Central European Bank, there is no longer a difference between official and working languages, but rather, the Office for Harmonization, to the extent it establishes a difference in recognition among official languages, goes a step further.
As regards other languages spoken historically within the European Union, it must be said that hierarchically speaking, these languages are below the 11 official and working languages. A hierarchy can also be established among these languages, in accordance with the degree of recognition accorded them. First would come Irish, followed by Letzeburgesch1, and later the other languages, which are scarcely recognized.
The third part of the study reflects on the need to reconsider the current language regime, taking advantage of the expansion of the European Union scheduled to take place in 2004 and the work of the European Convention. In actuality, the Community language regime is at times particularly unjust, as is the case with Catalan, a language that is practically unrecognized in the European Union despite the high number of Catalan speakers.
The paper concludes with some considerations and proposals aimed at remedying the most serious abuses that have come about as a result of the language hierarchy within the Community.
1. Translator¿s note: Alternately rendered in English as Luxembourgian, Luxenbourgisch, and Luxembourgish.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RECOGNITION OF LANGUAGE DIVERSITY IN THE CHARTER OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION Mar CAMPINS ERITJA The protection of European Union minority and regional languages is and has been an issue to which European institutions have devoted their attention in various resolutions. The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (1992) urged member states to implement a series of policies to promote intercultural events and multilingualism.
Community legislation up to now has tended to merely defend and promote language diversity as part of Europe¿s cultural heritage, without, however, going so far as to implement concrete measures with a basis in law to guarantee the use of minority languages. Mandating the use of a minority language could constitute a restriction of individual freedoms, according to Community legislation.
The cfreu, which was passed in Nice on December 7, 2000, emphasizes respect for language diversity, but does not consider minority rights to be fundamental. Consequently, the Charter follows the customary line of promoting and respecting regional languages, without, however, constituting a legal basis for upholding claims from some regional languages, such as Catalan, to be granted official Community language status. Nevertheless, the existence of a legal recognition of the phenomenon of language diversity represents an invitation to member states and institutions to take measures to respect the use of regional languages in legislative, administrative and regulatory functions. In the future, such measures may lead to improvements and more incisive legislation.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE OFFICIAL STATUS OF LANGUAGES WITH REGARD TO PLACE NAMES: THE CASE OF A CORUÑA Mª Begoña LÓPEZ PORTAS Fernando MARÍNEZ ARRIBAS The central theme of this paper is a study of Galician place names from the perspective of the process of language standardization. The study analyzes the problems that arose when Galician place names that had been translated into Spanish took back their original form as a result of the new political-legal framework of the last 25 years.
The paper has two clearly differentiated sections. First, it offers a sociolinguistic vision of the problem, studying the origin of the place names, the phenomenon of Castilianization and its historical underpinnings, and the socio-legal consequences. In this regard, attention should be drawn to the comparative study of the various language regulations regarding place names currently in force in Euskadi, Galicia, Catalonia, and Asturias.
Later, the paper discusses the conflict stemming from the place name for the city of A Coruña. In this instance, it analyzes Galician norms regarding place names and the long legal proceedings embarked upon in order to obtain the implementation of A Coruña¿s official name. The controversy did not stop with the 1994 ruling by the Superior Court of Galicia in 1994, and the Supreme Court (in a ruling in 2000) and the Constitutional Tribunal (2002 court records) had to intervene, confirming A Coruña as an official place name. In this way, this paper attempts to complete and update the article published by Lois Cambeiro Cives in 1995 in this very magazine, the Revista de Llengua i Dret.
In a word, the article combines a philological-linguistic perspective with a strictly legal outlook. It views its subject both from the generic standpoint of Galician toponymy and through the prism of a well known and controversial specific case.
