La llengua en els testaments: el Codi de successions i el Codi civil comparats

Resum

The national law 30/1991, of December 20th, of modification of the Civil Code on the subject of wills, and the Catalan law 40/1991, of December 30th, or Succession Code, coincide in their time frames but are clearly at odds in their treatment of the language question and in the solutions they adopt. In this essay the author analyzes in the first place article 109 of the Succession Code. After describing its basic norms and the different suppositions it contemplates, a conclusion is reached whereby wills issued in Catalonia must be written in one of the official languages of this autonomous community (Catalan or Castillian), and it is up to the person signing the will to choose the language in which to express their will to the notary and the choice of the official language in which the document is to be written. Secondly, the law that modifies the Spanish Civil Code is examined as well as the new phrasing of article 684, whereby the language of the notary --who may not know the language of the will signatory-- prevails. Such a principle denies citizens their right that their will be written only in their own language, official where the document is written, if the notary does not know it. The suppositions contemplated in article 684 of the Civil Code are analyzed, as well as the problems and questions it raises, to conclude that it is not viable as a regulatory norm of the co-existence of official languages in the six territories within Spain with autonomous language legislations. According to the author, the different legislative solutions given to the same question show the ideological background of the legislators: for the national legislator linguistic diversity is regarded as a problem and as a potential source of conflict, whereas for the Catalan legislator linguistic co-existence does not entail any special problems.