Cape Town - The constitution does not require the “simultaneous and equal use” of all 11 official languages for all purposes, according to findings by the Equality Court.
Judge Bennie Griesel handed down a judgment on Wednesday in which he dismissed an application to get all the legislation of Parliament published in all official languages.
The current practice is to publish national legislation in only two official languages.
The application was lodged by North West attorney Cerneels Lourens, who has also been described as a language activist, in his latest court bid for recognition of the “official status” of all 11 official languages.
He contended that the current practice undermined the official status of the other official languages and elevated English to the status of a “super official language”.
Lourens said the judgment was “disappointing”, claiming that his case had been misinterpreted.
An application for leave to appeal would be lodged soon.
In his judgment, Judge Griesel said that if equal treatment of all official languages for all purposes were intended, one would have expected to find clear provision to that effect.
Instead, the constitution provided that all official languages “must enjoy parity of esteem and must be treated equitably”.
“Furthermore, the constitution does not require the simultaneous and equal use of all 11 languages for all purposes,” wrote Judge Griesel.
The constitution, he said, expressly permitted the use of only two official languages for certain purposes, thereby “sanctioning (by necessary implication) ‘discrimination’ against the other nine official languages”.
“This raises the question, to which (Lourens) has been unable to furnish a persuasive answer, as to why the position should be different when it comes to national legislation.
“The inevitable conclusion is that, to the extent that the practice of publishing national legislation in only two official languages may be discriminatory, such discrimination is fair,” the judgment read.
Lourens had also levelled a line of attack against the joint rules of Parliament, to which the speaker of the National Assembly had provided (in court documents) a comprehensive explanation as to why English was used as the predominant language in which Parliament conducted its business, said Judge Griesel.
Among the reasons was that all parliamentarians understood English.
Judge Griesel found that there was no constitutional or statutory duty on any of the respondents – among them the Speaker, the chair of the National Council of Provinces and the minister of arts and culture – to publish or translate all national legislation in all official languages.
To the extent that publication of legislation in only two official languages “may be discriminatory”, he said, such discrimination was fair in terms of the Equality Act. He made a similar finding in relation to the joint rules of Parliament permitting the use of only two languages.