Linguistic Freedom and Co-official Languages in Spain
The Integration of Languages
The integration also means that the public authorities have a duty to provide citizens with the ability to exercise their rights. The rule of law, which embodies the powers that have the civilizing mission of providing peace and linguistic and cultural coexistence, cannot be a source of conflict, discrimination, and division. Thus, their obligation is to serve that objective, using all legal and political resources in their power to help “revive a sense of linguistic brotherhood” and “erase imaginary incompatibilities between love for their own language and the appreciation of one’s neighbor’s…” (Manuel Seco).
Another significant manifestation of integration would be the preference in teaching for joint linguistic patterns over those of separation.
The Free Choice of Language
In a system of official bilingualism, the freedom of language has its main content in the citizen’s freedom of choice between the two official languages in their relations with public interlocutors. The articulation of different subjects in the complex world of language is extremely difficult. The solution, in a model such as that of the Spanish Constitution, is to draw a first boundary between the system of language use by the government and by citizens. This line is deeply illuminating because, since the acceptance of the natural logic of freedom of language and a comprehensive view of all language rights, it should be concluded that the individual right of freedom of language takes precedence over the principle of government intervention. That is, the center of gravity of this freedom is on the side of the citizen, never on that of public power.
In our system of joint official bilingualism, freedom of language is manifested as a right to linguistic choice for the citizen, the right to choose to use either of the two co-official languages, precisely because they have a collective right to both languages.
This means that public authorities have no power of choice or predetermination of the official language to be used in their ordinary relations with citizens: their position on this point is subject to the citizens’ freedom of choice. The right of citizens to choose cannot be prevented or conditioned by a possible monolingual organization of the Administration in terms of working language or the language of service. That is, the Administration must articulate a bilingual performance of public services so that the citizen, without obstacles or pressures, can choose the language they prefer.
The Free Development of Personality
Language may be seen merely as a communication tool between individuals. This is a function for which all languages are apt. But language, when it is the natural language of inclusion of the individual in the community, is also a skin that regulates the osmosis of every human being with the world. And this the law cannot ignore. The system must create the conditions for the development of personality, strengths, and capabilities that shape the individual as a unique being, as a distinct person. This is why the distinction between language and personality, just as the link between culture and personality, becomes uniquely close, which is manifested particularly clearly in the education system. This principle of personality is one of the major factors that makes language rights highly sensitive.
The Scope of Co-officiality
The vagueness of the Constitution on the concept of official language was clarified by the Constitutional Court in 1986: “An official language is, regardless of its reality and weight as a social phenomenon, one that is recognized by the state as a normal means of communication in and between them and in their relation to private actors, with full legal force and effect.”