The Hungarian Edition Of The Official Gazette Of Romania – A Possible Good Practice

Undoubtedly, each of us understands and communicates best in our mother tongue. Despite the cultural differences, both the person or group of people coming from a conflict zone, an insecure region or one with a low standard of living, recently established in the host state, as well as the members of an indigenous minority community are subject to the rigors and norms that govern society in that state. “Nemo censetur ignorare legem”, without exceptions or derogations based on race, ethnicity or language. As a requirement of the principle of legal certainty, the accessibility of the law in the doctrine is treated under a double aspect: the first aspect aims at bringing to public knowledge, as a conditioning of legal effects, and the second aspect refers to notions such as reception and understanding. All these aspects, however, start from the premise of knowing the language, which can be problematic for both categories of people, and this reality exists regardless of the volitional, conjunctural or historical character of the situation in which the individual finds himself. Regarding the accessibility of legislation in languages other than the official state language, the European landscape is a varied one. In addition to the official language or languages, many states provide basic legislative information or even entire bodies of legal text in English as an intermediate solution. Romania, however, offers to the largest minority in Romania a dedicated, Hungarian edition of the Official Gazette of Romania, a solution much more appropriate to the context. Such a tool not only facilitates compliance with society's demands, but also gives the individual the chance to have a proactive attitude in the sense of exercising rights and accessing opportunities on equal terms with the majority population, even without an exhaustive knowledge of the state language.