The latest issue of Just. Journal of Language Rights & Minorities / Revista de Drets Lingüístics i Minories, co-edited and directed by Vicenta Tasa-Fuster, professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Valencia, analyses language policy in the field of justice in different bi- and multilingual countries. Among them is the case of Spain, which, with its quasi-federal territorial model, recognises linguistic diversity in the judicial administration as a constitutional right de jure –on paper– while, as a material right de facto, it still represents a “challenge”.
In this regard, Vicenta Tasa-Fuster, who co-authors the introductory article to the issue together with UNED professor and co-editor Xabier Arzoz, notes that “territorial autonomy alone is not a decisive factor in achieving adequate accommodation of minority languages within the justice system”. This argument is based on the “strong contrast” between the status of Swedish in Finland – where it is a minority language compared to Finnish but enjoys equal national recognition – and the status of Spain’s official languages other than Spanish. The latter, they argue, “depends less on the model of the State than on the political culture of the dominant-language community”.
According to the authors, what happens in Spain is that, despite competence over the protection of regional languages having been transferred to substate authorities (the autonomous communities), the central State retains all key powers, ranging from the enactment of procedural law to the organisation of the judicial administration. As a result, “the autonomous communities cannot regulate the language of judicial proceedings, set linguistic requirements for entry into the judiciary, or even consider knowledge of their co-official languages as a merit, since the central State maintains the judiciary’s monolingual tradition through its legislation and policies”, they assert.
The special issue, with contributions from international authors, analyses specific cases from countries regarded as benchmarks in the management of co-official or national languages within their judicial systems. These include the treatment of Swedish in Finland; the functioning of court systems that go beyond the federal use of language, as in Canada, Switzerland or South Tyrol in Italy; and the dual justice system used in Brussels (Belgium), with separate courtrooms operating exclusively in French or Flemish, respectively.
In Spain, according to Francisco Caamaño’s article 'Hablar para defenderse: Minorías lingüísticas y derecho a la jurisdicción' (Speaking to defend oneself: linguistic minorities and the right to jurisdiction), the implementation of citizens’ linguistic rights in the justice system adheres neither to the territorial principle nor to the personal principle of freely using any of the official languages. Instead, it reflects “the monolingual conception rooted in the tradition and the unitary structure of the judiciary”. The article highlights the first legal advance in more than 40 years of democracy: the November 2024 law recognising the right to submit applications in official languages other than Castilian to courts based in Madrid and to receive judicial decisions in the same language.
Respecting linguistic diversity: a challenge
In the words of the authors of the presentation, the collection of articles included in this special issue aims to contribute to understanding the challenge of respecting linguistic diversity in the justice system and, by extension, its implications for fields such as law, education, political science and sociolinguistics.
The introductory text calls for access to justice in a recognised language –whether official or minority– as one of the most relevant linguistic rights, but also acknowledges that its implementation would affect the entire legal system, involving significant distributive and political decisions.
At the same time, it warns against the risk of “reducing justice to a language service”, understood merely as an “interpretation service”, and argues for moving beyond this view by assuming –and educating citizens– that de facto bi-/multilingualism in the justice system is central to upholding the rule of law, with a crucial impact on the (de)legitimisation of the State. In other words, Tasa-Fuster and Arzoz conclude, “the language in which individuals interact with the judiciary and its supporting institutions reflects the extent of (in)equality and (dis)empowerment experienced by speakers” of the different coexisting languages.
This position also entails a critique of the international human rights perspective, according to which “language is treated as a merely instrumental rather than an essential issue”. “The exercise of judicial remedies is conceived as a type of technical service, and the only requirement is that the person concerned is understood and that the service is delivered correctly, regardless of the language used”, argues Tasa-Fuster.
In her view, “this amounts to denying any connection between the use of one’s preferred language and human dignity. Yet law is the most linguistic of social institutions, because it is drafted, enacted, proclaimed, administered, interpreted and repealed through linguistic acts that are simultaneously acts of power”. Therefore, the choice of language used, beyond its instrumental significance, “has a dimension tied to human dignity and to the symbolic and political order”.
Reference: Arzoz, Xabier & Vicenta Tasa-Fuster. 2025. “Presentació: L’ús de les llengües minoritàries en la Justícia”. Just. Journal of Language Rights & Minorities, Revista De Drets Lingüístics i Minories 4 (2):7–29. https://doi.org/10.7203/Just.4.32147