[lg policy] The Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market's language policy

[Harold Schiffman]

The Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market's language policy
regarding its website and its correspondence with citizens
Available languages:
bg.es.cs.da.de.et.en.fr.ga.it.lv.lt.hu.mt.nl.pl.pt.ro.sk.sl.fi.sv
inShare

Related documents

    Case: 2413/2010/MHZ
    Decision of the European Ombudsman closing his inquiry into
complaint 2413/2010/MHZ against the Office for Harmonization in the
Internal Market (OHIM)

    Case: 2413/2010/MHZ
    Opened on 15 Dec 2010 - Decision on 13 Dec 2011
    Institution(s) concerned: Office for Harmonisation in the Internal
Market - Trade Marks and Designs
    Field(s) of law: General, financial and institutional matters
    Types of maladministration alleged – (i) breach of, or (ii) breach
of duties relating to: Absence of discrimination [Article 5
ECGAB],Lawfulness (incorrect application of substantive and/or
procedural rules) [Article 4 ECGAB],Reply to letters in the language
of the citizen, indicating the competent official [Articles 13 and 14
ECGAB]
    Subject matter(s): Institutional and policy matters

 [...]

Summary of decision on complaint 2413/2010/MHZ against the Office for
Harmonisation in the Internal Market

The complainant, a Polish citizen, alleged that the Office for
Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM) replied in English to his
letter which was written in Polish, and that the OHIM website was only
available in OHIM's working languages (English, French, German,
Spanish, and Italian). He considered this to be unlawful and turned to
the Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman opened an inquiry and succeeded in convincing OHIM to
change its language policy. He did not agree with OHIM's initial view
that the OHIM Basic Regulation, together with the judgment in Kik,
constitutes the legal basis for its practice of using only English,
French, German, Spanish, and Italian in its website. Moreover, he
could not exclude that this practice would put legal and natural
persons coming from Member States other than Germany, France, the
United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain at a disadvantage when compared to
persons originating from those countries. He emphasised that, when a
citizen first visits the OHIM website, he would find it much easier to
navigate it if all the language versions were available. He argued
that good administrative practice requires that, as far as possible,
the institutions, bodies, offices, and agencies of the EU provide
information to citizens in their own language. He further stated that
administrative convenience is not a valid argument for an EU
administration well equipped in terms of technical and human resources
not to make its websites available in all EU languages.

As a result of the Ombudsman's inquiry, OHIM introduced important
changes. First, it decided to accept written queries from any citizen
of the Union, in any one of the languages mentioned in Article 55(1)
TEU, and to provide an answer in the same language. Second, it
accepted the Ombudsman's proposal for a friendly solution. It thus
made the homepage of its website available in all EU languages and
explained its language policy thereon. The Ombudsman applauded this
commendable stance.

http://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/cases/summary.faces/en/11426/html.bookmark

-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to
its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner
or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents.
Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal,
and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message.
 A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well.  (H. Schiffman,
Moderator)

For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to
https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/
listinfo/lgpolicy-list
*******************************************

_______________________________________________
This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list