Italian Constitutional Court (Corte costituzionale italiana), No. 406/1999, 3 November 1999

Issue of constitutional legitimacy regarding the right of an Italian citizen, belonging to the Slovenian linguistic minority community, to use the mother tongue in criminal proceedings.

Art. 3, art. 6, art. 24 Italian Constitution
Art. 109 Italian criminal procedure code

1. It is unfounded, with reference to arts. 3, 6 and 24 of the Constitution, the question of constitutional legitimacy of art. 109, co. 2, cod. proc. pen. which provides for the right of the Italian citizen belonging to a recognized linguistic minority to be questioned (or examined) in the mother tongue, as well as the right to the translation of the documents of the trial addressed to him, before the judicial authority having jurisdiction of first instance (or of appeal) in a territory where there is a recognised linguistic minority, in the part in which it does not apply also in the criminal proceedings that take place as a result of the shift of competence ope legis in relation to proceedings concerning magistrates before a judicial authority not having based in the territory where the linguistic minority community is present.

2. The purpose of art. 6 of the Constitution is inspired by the "criterion of territoriality", which implies that the rights of use of the language recognised to members of minority linguistic communities are valid as rights of the person, but only in relations with the competent institutions in the territory of the communities . It follows that it is not necessary to infer the existence of a constraint on the legislator to the adoption of the personal criterion, rather than the territorial one, in the discipline of the linguistic rights of minorities, given that the legislator has its own power of due evaluation, necessarily having to take into account the consequences that, for the rights of other subjects not belonging to the protected linguistic minority and on the organisational level of the public authorities, derive from the special legislation dictated in implementation of art. 6 of the Constitution.

3. In relation to art. 3 of the Constitution, the choices of reconciliation made by the legislator are inevitable when it is a question of the recognition in favour of minorities of rights that are an exception to general rules, and of disciplines that must take into account the plurality of interests taken into consideration. On this point, the adoption of the territoriality criterion and its application does not result in the defect of unconstitutionality, without prejudice to the reconstruction of the legislative choices, which is up to the judge through his interpretative powers.