Hannele Isola-Miettinen, Lic.Adm. Science (public law) (home)mail: hannele.isola-miettinen@kolumbus.

fi XXIV World Congress of Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy in Beijing (China) September 15-20, 2009. Global Harmony and Rule of Law. Paper for Special Workshop: Law and Language Making Laws Work in a Globalised World, Coordinator Dr. Karen McAuliffe (K.McAuliffe@exeter.ac.uk) ABSTRACT: LANGUAGE AND DEMOCRACY: CASE EUROPEAN UNION Special feature of European Union is that it gives legislation that has binding effects: the legislation given by union organs binds not only on the Member States but directly on the individuals and citizens of Member States. This state of affairs is not typical in traditional international organisations. An other important aspect is that European Union law has the supremacy status in the Member States. European Union law prevails national legislation in the competence area of the Union. The problem and starting point of this paper is that the representative democracy and democratic legitimacy idea supposes that the addressees of legislation understand the legislation given in democratic processes and that the addressees of law understand the law applied to them. One could argue that common language is a tool of political participation and a tool of understanding the legislation given and applied in the society. In the Treaty of European Union there are provisions on principle of linguistic diversity. How European citizens will manage with their communication within European Union political/legal context? One social phenomenon of nineteenth and twentieth centuries is that as European nation states developed, monolingualism and cultural homogeneity within the state was desirable, both from the point of view of the state and the individual. Plurilingual societies were dismissed. Subjects in national family by national education and welfare tended to progress linguistic unification. Wright (2000) writes that as representative democracy became the norm and as subjects became citizens who must play a political role, the pressure for there to be a single language in which this political process could be enacted intensified. Along the ideas of Enlightenment Rousseau was among the first to link state with people. There was a philosophical acceptance of the individuals importance as part of the collective whole: she/he was no longer subject but citizen and the locus of political power was no longer a single ruling class but the people. Wright writes that (T)his is most clearly seen in the ideas of French revolution, but all European nationalisms left-wing and right-wing, religious and secular, aristocratic and petit bourgeois paid lip service to the rights of the citizen and claimed legitimacy through the support of the people. Along Wright there are only few democratic European states which did not attempt to become unified monolingual societies. Second aspect is that economic within the state affected to linguistic unification. Industrialism brought people together within the state from rural areas to cities or linguistical melting pots. This kind of process is going on between the states in European Union in single market across the internal borders. But it seems, that at this time there is no sign on language unification like in the European nationalist era.

What importance and weight we should give to language question in European context? The language as a tool of communication is the most important means for receiving the information and understandings on the society around us. Kymlicka and Patten (2003) in their interesting book Language Rights and Political Theory ask why have language rights and language policy become an issue for political theorists now. They have identified both practical and theoretical factors that have spurred reflection on language issues. The practical factors along them are 1) Conflicts in eastern Europe, 2) Collisions between regional languages and minority nationalisms (like in Belgium, Spain). They typically involve conflicts between dominant national groups and regionally concentrated historically rooted linguistic minorities in eastern Europe, in West these conflicts have been most intense when the dominant national group attempts to impose its language as the state language on all parts of the country, including those regions which the minority views as its historic homeland. 3) Into the practical problems Kymlicka and Patten count the immigrant integration and in this respect the expectations on the linguistic integration, too, . 4) European Union and transnational democracy, 5) Indigenous languages/biodiversity that refers to the effort to save endangered languages. In this paper the interest is mostly on the fourth problem, European Union and transnational democracy. Along Kymlicka and Patten language has been central question in attempts to construct transnational political communities like European Union. The European Union is often cited by commentators as a model for a new form of transnational democracy and post-national citizenship that will gradually replace the old Westphalian model of nation state. Kymlicka and Patten say that one of the most important obstacles to building a stronger sense of European citizenship is linguistic diversity. The democratic deficit is well known problem of European Union, and studies show that general public in most European countries feel little sense of connection to the European Parliament. Along Kymlicka and Patten the linguistic diversity is still waiting the solution in this public indentification and participation problem in European Union context. Two problems are refined in this context: 1) the vertical linkage between individual citizens and EU itself and 2) the horizontal linkages between citizens themselves that refer to will-formation in European Union. Kymlicka and Patten write that in European Union there gradually come to distinguish between a) external and b) internal aspects of communication. The external dimension involves communication with ordinary citizens or amongst ministers or heads of government. In these context people have a right to use any of the official EU languages. In the internal working of Commission officials work in a small number of languages, French, English and in lesser extent German. Kymlicka and Patten write that in some new offices like in European Patent Office a smaller number of languages is designated for external communication. In legal and political literature it has been widely seen that language right is not only cultural right, or, kind of neutral right, at all. Language right makes possible political rights, for example.

We also know that language do have very important function in the nation state formation. European Union is not a nation state although European Constitution has once been written, already. And the European Constitution has not been ratified by all Member States. The future of European Union is unsolved question. European Union is a special kind of regional international organisation based on the Treaty of European Union. European Unions reliance on law for articulation and limitation of power makes it essentially the linguistic regime. And like nation states, European Union as a legislator rests on the possibility of communicative exchanges, too. Because of the special nature of the European Union as a legislator and law giver, it is necessary to pay attention on its linguistic diversity. Linguistic diversity has been articulated now in European Union on Treaty level, in other words on Unions constitutional level. Along article 3 of the Treaty Union shall respect its rich cultural and linguistic diversity, and shall ensure that Europes cultural heritage is safeguarded and enhanced. Also, in the preamble of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union it is stressed common values while respecting the diversity of the cultures and traditions of the peoples of Europe. The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union is kind of European Bill of Rights. The main principle in European Union is that every Member State has a right to define its official Treaty language and EU -legislation language in European Union. The fact is that the Treaty of the European Union confirms at the moment 23 official languages. But in the European Union area it is spoken more than 60 indigenous languages and scores of non-indigenous languages spoken by migrant communities. The language is kind a tool of communication in the society. On societal level and in the democratic system we necessarily need some common language. In this paper it is reflected on how does that common language idea works in multilingual EU context? As told earlier, linguistic unity has been one demand of nation formation, too. The three main aspects are focused: 1) theoretically the language as a cultural right/political right in European Union context, 2) the principle of language diversity in European Union versus language as a tool and the precondition of the unity and communication in the representative democratic system, 3) the language rights and the rule of law in European Union (analysing the ECJ -case Skoma-Lux).