THE HUNGARIAN EDITION OF THE OFFICIAL GAZETTE OF ROMANIA – A POSSIBLE GOOD PRACTICE
THE HUNGARIAN EDITION OF THE OFFICIAL GAZETTE OF ROMANIA – A POSSIBLE GOOD PRACTICE

Summary/Abstract: Undoubtedly, each of us understands and communicates best in our mother tongue. Despitethe cultural differences, both the person or group of people coming from a conflict zone, an insecureregion or one with a low standard of living, recently established in the host state, as well as themembers of an indigenous minority community are subject to the rigors and norms that governsociety in that state. “Nemo censetur ignorare legem”, without exceptions or derogations based onrace, ethnicity or language.As a requirement of the principle of legal certainty, the accessibility of the law in thedoctrine is treated under a double aspect: the first aspect aims at bringing to public knowledge, as aconditioning of legal effects, and the second aspect refers to notions such as reception andunderstanding. All these aspects, however, start from the premise of knowing the language, whichcan 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, theEuropean landscape is a varied one. In addition to the official language or languages, many statesprovide basic legislative information or even entire bodies of legal text in English as an intermediatesolution. Romania, however, offers to the largest minority in Romania a dedicated, Hungarian edition ofthe Official Gazette of Romania, a solution much more appropriate to the context. Such a tool not onlyfacilitates compliance with society's demands, but also gives the individual the chance to have a proactiveattitude in the sense of exercising rights and accessing opportunities on equal terms with the majoritypopulation, even without an exhaustive knowledge of the state language.

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