7 European Charter for Regional Or Minority Languages APPLICATION
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Strasbourg, 23 November 2001 ECRML (2001) 7 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages APPLICATION OF THE CHARTER IN SWITZERLAND A. Report of the Committee of Experts on the Charter B. Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on the application of the Charter by Switzerland The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages provides for a control mechanism to evaluate how the Charter is applied in a State Party with a view to, where necessary, making Recommendations for improvements in its legislation, policy and practices. The central element of this procedure is the Committee of Experts, established in accordance with Article 17 of the Charter. Its principal purpose is to report to the Committee of Ministers on its evaluation of compliance by a Party with its undertakings, to examine the real situation of the regional or minority languages in the State and, where appropriate, to encourage the Party to gradually reach a higher level of commitment. To facilitate this task, the Committee of Ministers adopted, in accordance with Article 15.1, an outline for the initial periodical report that a Party is required to submit to the Secretary General. The report should be made public by the State. This outline requires the State to give an account of the concrete application of the Charter, the general policy for the languages protected under its Part II and in more precise terms all measures that have been taken in application of the provisions chosen for each language protected under Part III of the Charter. The Committee’s first task is therefore to examine the information contained in the initial periodical report for all the relevant regional or minority languages on the territory of the State concerned. The Committee’s role is to evaluate the existing legal acts, regulations and real practice applied in each State for its regional or minority languages. It has established its working methods accordingly. The Committee gathers information from the respective authorities and from independent sources within the State, so as to attempt to obtain a just and fair overview of the real language situation. After a preliminary examination of an initial periodical report, the Committee submits, if necessary, a number of questions to each Party to procure supplementary information from the authorities on matters it considers insufficiently developed in the report itself. This written procedure is usually followed up by an “on-the-spot visit” of a delegation of the Committee to the respective State. During this visit the delegation meets bodies and associations whose work is closely related to the use of the relevant languages, and consults the authorities on matters that have been brought to its attention. This information-gathering process is designed to enable the Committee to better evaluate the application of the Charter in the State concerned. Having concluded this process, the Committee of Experts adopts its own report. This report is submitted to the Committee of Ministers together with suggestions for recommendations that the latter could decide to address to one or more Parties as may be required. 2 CONTENTS A. Report of the Committee of Experts on the application of the Charter in Switzerland ………………………………. 5 Chapter 1: Background information ……………… 7 Chapter 2: The Committee’s evaluation in respect of Part II and Part III of the Charter …….. 12 Chapter 3: Findings of the Committee ……………. 62 Appendix I: Instrument of ratification ………………. 65 Appendix II: Comments of the Swiss authorities ……. 67 B. Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on the application of the Charter in Switzerland ........ 73 3 Strasbourg, 1 June 2001 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages A. Report of the Committee of Experts on the application of the Charter presented to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in accordance with Article 16 of the Charter SWITZERLAND 5 CONTENTS Chapter 1 Background information 1.1. The work of the Committee of Experts 1.2. Presentation of the regional or minority language situation in Switzerland 1.3. Particular issues arising in the evaluation of the application of the Charter in Switzerland Chapter 2 The Committee’s evaluation in respect of Part II and Part III of the Charter 2.1. The evaluation in respect of Part II of the Charter 2.2. The evaluation in respect of Part III of the Charter 2.2.1. The Romansh language 2.2.2. The Italian language a. Canton of Grisons b. Canton of Ticino Chapter 3 Findings Appendix I Instrument of Ratification Appendix II Comments by the Swiss authorities 6 Chapter 1. Background information 1. The Swiss Confederation signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (hereafter referred to as the Charter) on 8 October 1993. The Federal Council decided to ratify it on 31 October 1997. Through this decision, the Charter became part of Swiss law. The Swiss authorities formally ratified it on 23 December 1997. The Charter entered into force in respect of Switzerland on 1 April 1998. 2. In accordance with Article 15.1, the first periodical report on the application of the Charter in Switzerland was due in March 1999. It was approved by the Federal Council in September 1999 and was presented to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe in October 1999. It was published by the Federal Office of Culture in French, Italian and partly in Romansh in February 2000. 3. The instrument of ratification of the Swiss Confederation is set out in Appendix I to this report. This instrument specifies the languages covered by Part III and the paragraphs and sub-paragraphs applicable to each one of them without mentioning any territorial limitation. 4. This report was adopted by the Committee of Experts on 1 June 2001. 1.1. Work of the Committee of Experts 5. After the Committee of Experts had made its preliminary examination of the report, a questionnaire was drawn up and addressed to the Swiss authorities. The Committee organised its “on-the-spot visit” to Switzerland in September 2000. It met the authorities responsible for and/or concerned with the implementation of the Charter, as well as representatives of the speakers of the relevant languages. It visited the cantons of Grisons and Ticino, where it met several regional and local authorities, as well as representatives from the sectors of the media and education and NGOs (such as the Lia Rumantscha and Pro Grigioni italiano). It also visited Bern, where it met the authorities of the cantons of Fribourg, Valais and Bern, the Federal authorities and representatives of the Yenish community. On the basis of the information gathered from the initial periodical report, the questionnaire and the “on-the-spot- visit”, the Committee of Experts was better able to prepare its evaluation of the application of the Charter in Switzerland. 6. The Committee has established a list of general proposals for the preparation of recommendations from the Committee of Ministers to Switzerland, as provided for in Article 16.4 (Chapter 3.2 of this report). The Committee has furthermore, in the body of the report, made, where necessary, more detailed observations which it encourages the Swiss authorities to take into consideration when developing their policy with regard to regional or minority languages. 7. This report is based on the political and legal situation at the time when the Charter entered into force in Switzerland (March 1998), and at the time when Switzerland presented its initial periodical report to the Council of Europe (February 2000). It is based on the information obtained by the Committee from different sources. 7 1.2. Presentation of the regional or minority language situation in Switzerland 8. According to the new Federal Constitution of Switzerland (entered into force in January 2000), the national languages of Switzerland are German, French, Italian and Romansh (Article 4). 9. Switzerland consists of 23 cantons, three of which are divided into “half cantons”. The cantons designate their official languages. The present situation is as follows: § Monolingual cantons (or half cantons): German: 11 cantons and 6 half cantons French: 4 cantons (Geneva, Neuchâtel, Jura and Vaud) Italian: 1 canton (Ticino) § Bilingual cantons (German-French): 3 cantons (Bern, Fribourg and Valais) § Trilingual cantons (German, Italian and Romansh): 1 canton (Grisons). 10. Following the results of the federal census of 1990, the Swiss residents (6 873 687) declared their “main language” to be: German (63.6% = 4 374 694 speakers), French (19.2% = 1 321 685 speakers), Italian (7.6% = 524 116 speakers), Romansh (0.6% = 39 632 speakers). A new census was carried out in 2000, but the results were not available at the time of the examination of the situation by the Committee. 11. Obviously, Romansh and Italian appear to be the less widely used official languages in Switzerland and are granted special protection under Part III of the Charter. 12. In certain cantons, German and French might also be perceived as less widely used official languages. Since Switzerland does not grant these languages any special protection under Part III of the Charter, they fall, in principle, outside of its scope. However, there may be cases, as with the speakers of the Walser variant of German in the canton of Ticino, where one of the main languages of the Confederation does not enjoy the status of an official language of the canton and thus becomes a minority language covered by Part II of the Charter. 13. Romansh is a Romance (or Neo-Latin) language. It developed as the Vulgar Latin of the Roman invaders merged more and more with the existing languages of the peoples from today’s canton of Grisons.