Cape Town - The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) could be asked to decide whether national legislation should be published in each of South Africa’s 11 official languages, if a Brits attorney has his way.
The Afrikaans-speaking attorney, Cerneels Lourens, this week prepared an application for leave to appeal against an Equality Court ruling that it was not necessary for legislation to be translated from English into the other 10 official languages.
The application was lodged against the Speaker of the National Assembly, chairperson of the National Council of Provinces, Arts and Culture Minister and the Pan South African Language Board.
In the Equality Court judgment, handed down this month, Judge Bennie Griesel found that there was no constitutional or statutory duty on any of the respondents to publish or translate legislation into all official languages.
He also said that if equal treatment of all official languages for all purposes were intended, one would expect to find provisions to that effect.
Instead, the constitution provides that “all official languages must enjoy parity of esteem, and must be treated equitably”, he said.
The constitution also did not require the simultaneous and equal use of all 11 languages for all purposes, but rather permitted the use of only two official languages for certain purposes.
But Lourens is not giving up. He said he was refining his leave to appeal application tomorrow, saying that he disagreed with the court’s interpretation of the issue. He would file the application early next week.
In a separate statement, he said he was disappointed by the Equality Court ruling, which he described as a setback for African languages and Afrikaans. “It is however only a battle which was lost in the struggle for a fair language dispensation in accordance with the constitution, but the fair struggle goes on,” he said.
Weekend Argus