The Influence of Constitutional Court Judgments for the Protection of Minority Languages: Italy

Abstract

The main theme of this paper is the examination of the judgments of Italian and Spanish Constitutional Courts on minority language legislation to show how they had paramount importance to develop legislation in this sector. The paper is two-hold: the first part of the paper deals with Italian Legislation and Italian Constitutional Court judgments regarding the protection of minority languages. Then the paper narrows down its focus onto Italian Constitutional Court judgment n. 159 of 2009. The second part of the paper looks to Spanish Constitutional Court judgments regarding the Autonomous Communities legislation on minority languages. The paper then concludes that Constitution and Constitutional Court judgments have a significant influence in the development of legislation regarding the protection of minority languages.

Keywords

• minority languages, legislation, Constitutional Court, Italy, Spain