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Twenty-five years into our Constitution, language continues to be a sensitive issue. The series of episodes that have been generated because of language, far from being settled and resolved, are a commonplace occurrence. They enjoy a degree of transcendency and repercussion in the public domain that is lacking in other matters that are quietly resolved every day in the courts.
Nevertheless, I believe that the number of people who consider the coexistence of various languages in one territory a cause for confrontation is on the decline. Rather, language coexistence is accepted as an enriching phenomenon derived from a multiplicity of unique social characteristics. The constitutional framework we established to link territory with language was not, and is not, the only possible solution. It is simply the solution that a majority of us chose at a specific historical point in time. Future generations shall accept it or modify it, just as we have done.
The regulation of language is built on the foundation of one official language, Spanish, for the entire state, and other coofficial languages covering a smaller area, as determined by their respective statutes of autonomy. The duty to have a knowledge of Spanish is advocated, something that does not occur with the other coofficial languages. However, as we shall see, that duty is not absolute, nor is that authority what it appears to be. The official character of the language is linked to a decision made by the legislature, independently of its reality and weight as a social phenomenon, and is not limited exclusively to the relations of individuals with public authorities. Rather, it is supposed to allow for language to be used as a means of access to all sorts of dynamic expression (news, cinema, theatre, radio, television, etc.). This leads us to wonder whether and to what extent the government will be able to intervene to guarantee this access in those areas where the private sector is absent.
Today, public authorities (any public authority established in a territory having a coofficial language regime) can no longer cite a lack of human or material resources as a reason for non-compliance. They must fully guarantee language pluralism by combining the right to the actual exercise of a language with the right to have equal access to the civil service. Promoting a knowledge of a coofficial language among authorities and civil servants, or requiring authorities and civil servants to have such knowledge depends on the specific job in question. However, it is necessary to go one step further, and not link the knowledge of the language to the position, but rather to the choice of the person using the services of the administrative authority.
In the teaching field, we must highlight three aspects that correspond to the autonomous communities that cannot be taken away by the central government: the teaching of the autochthonous language, the autochthonous language as a common language, and a schedule of exemptions for both.
The justice system deserves special mention. Undoubtedly, this is the branch of government that is proving to be most impermeable to the coofficial use of language. If you allow me the turn of phrase, "a certain amount of stage fright" prevents the users of the justice system from freely exercising their language rights. Lawyers, experts, civil servants, judges and magistrates, whether it be out of convenience, lack of proper training or other reasons that will be set forth, end up using the language in which they have the greatest mastery, the language in which they received their legal training. There is a right to use the autochthonous language and the legal machinery has the duty to lend itself to those exercising such a right. If all the parties agreed to use the autochthonous language as a common language for legal proceedings, and it became necessary to use Spanish because the members of the court did not understand or have sufficient mastery of the autochthonous language, this would not be in accordance with the principle of coofficial status. Nor can a trial be held in Spanish because it is argued that a party¿s lack of knowledge of the language of the autonomous region amounts to a state of defenselessness; the two have nothing to do with each other.
