[lg policy] South Africa: Honour language policy

[Harold Schiffman]

Honour language policy

ILSE DE LANGE

JOHANNESBURG - Government has been given two years to honour its
constitutional duty to regulate and monitor the use of all 11 official
languages in the country. Judge Ben du Plessis yesterday granted an
order to Brits attorney Cerneels Lourens, declaring that the national
government had failed to govern and monitor its use of the official
languages in terms of the Constitution. He said it was “unacceptable”
that nothing had been done in 14 years to comply with this founding
principal of the Constitution. The Minister of Arts and Culture was
given two years to fulfil this constitutional obligation and was also
ordered to pay the costs of the application. The judge, however, did
not stipulate how government should go about complying with the court
order.

Lourens initially sought a court order to force government to finalise
and promulgate a national language policy; perform a language audit of
all national government departments and to publish national
legislation in all 11 official languages.  He maintained government
was following a policy of Anglicisation by using En- glish as a “super
official language” resulting in the other 10 official languages having
to be “satisfied with crumbs”. Lourens yesterday welcomed the ruling,
but said it was a disgrace government did not comply with the
Constitution. He said if any government in Europe had been given such
a legal hiding, it would have had to resign.


Trade Union Solidarity described the ruling as “the biggest victory
since 1994” and Alana Bailey of AfriForum said the judgment had a
direct impact on their battle with the SA Revenue Service and could
result in other court applications. Judge du Plessis, who gave his
judgment in Afrikaans, said unless the 11 official languages were
dismissed as “fiction” it meant that organs of state in the national
sphere could be addressed in any of the 11 languages, within
reasonable bounds. He said a judgment in English would be
“insensitive” towards Lourens in the light of the rights he was trying
to protect. Judge du Plessis said although the national government had
initially been rather eager to comply with its obligations, the
process came to a standstill in 2007 and there was presently no
co-ordinated language policy.

http://www.citizen.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8422:honour-language-policy&catid=25:local-news&Itemid=34

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