Art. 6 of the Constitution entrusts the Republic with “the task of protecting linguistic minorities with specific rules”. This provision joins the more general principle of equality enshrined in art. 3 of the Constitution from which it is possible to deduce that the Constitution guarantees “equal social dignity” to those who speak languages other than Italian. The protection of linguistic minorities and the enhancement of their cultural identity is entrusted to both the national and the Regional legislator but, as repeated on several occasions by the Constitutional Court, “the identification of the characterizing elements of a linguistic minority to be protected” falls solely within the national legislator’s responsibility (Corte Cost, sentence no. 81/2018). Until 1999, in the absence of an organic law of reference, the only form of protection was recognized, through reference to the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities of 1999, to historical or national minorities of the French-speaking group of the Valle d’Aosta, the German-speaking group of Alto Adige and the Slovenian group in the provinces of Trieste and Gorizia.
It is only with law no. 482/ 1999, containing “rules on the protection of historic linguistic minorities” which introduced an organic discipline for the protection of the language and culture “of the Albanian, Catalan, Germanic, Greek, Slovenian and Croatian populations and of those speaking French, Franco-Provençal, Friulian, Ladin, Occitan and Sardinian”. According to the law, educational institutions are tasked with ensuring the teaching of the aforementioned languages and cultural traditions of minorities, while the public radio and television service (RAI) should ensure, through specific agreements, adequate forms of protection for linguistic minorities, under the supervision of the Authority for Guarantees in Communication/AGCOM. On the basis of the agreements currently in place, RAI ensures the broadcasting of radio and television programmes in German, Latin, Slovenian and French, in their respective reference areas. In addition, in 2020, agreements were finalized with the Information and Publishing Department of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers for the protection of the Sardinian language and the Friulian language. On the other hand, minorities of immigrants have no form of protection by law, nor the Roma and Sinti populations; the reasons for this absence can be inferred from the title of the law which provides protection exclusively to “historic” linguistic minorities rooted in a specific geographical area.
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