A/79/169 own priorities and preferences? 60 Some limits on autonomy may be set out in constitutional or national legislative frameworks, which would prevail over decisions taken autonomously. In such cases, autonomy could result from the recognition of sectoral autonomy combined with community autonomy – autonomy recognized for persons belonging to certain minority groups in a specific field of public aff airs 61 – or from a combination of territorial autonomy, division of competencies (between the different levels of government) and distribution of populations on the territory. 34. Naturally, in a system in which persons belonging to a minority have the capacity, in some domains of particular relevance to their minority situation or identity, to adopt their own rules and policies, a system for coordinating their choices with the choices of the majoritarian population should be provided for. Rules for conflicts between choices, for preferences or for hierarchies of norms should exist and be implemented. It goes without saying that these rules of coordination should not be designed and/or implemented such that the autonomy formally recognized through the institutional design becomes ineffective in practice. Such mechanisms should be administered by a third party (judicial power) or based on conciliatory processes. 35. Self-rule will de facto induce diversity in the national society. However, it should not create “parallel societies”, precluding persons belonging to minorities from fully participating, integrating into and contributing to the national society. In the case of territorial autonomy, if the composition of State-level authorities provides for representation of the autonomous political/administrative units at the State level (as is the case in federal systems with a second chamber of parliament), then the contribution is institutionally enforced; this could be described as a best -case scenario. In other cases, the self-ruling minorities may be represented, through their self-ruling authorities or through a parallel mechanism, in consultative bodies. Some State authorities also have the practice of consulting self-governing authorities (informally) on matters which may affect the self-governing communities or their members. Naturally, formal mechanisms will be more effective in cases of normative dissensus or conflicts of interest. XI. Implementation of minority rights and policies 36. Even though the Declaration on the Rights of Persons belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities is silent on this issue, the Special Rapporteur deems it important to ensure that the diversity of the State population is effectively represented in the implementation mechanisms. There are three reasons for this: first, for the sake of efficiency (for example, if there is a State policy on minority language, it is evident that speakers of the minority language are needed for implementing such a policy); second, because it is important that persons belonging to minorities, in order to feel included and represented in society as a whole, can see that the participation of their group is effectively acknowledged not only in the decision making process but also on the implementation side; and third, if relationships between __________________ 60 61 18/20 This is the case in Switzerland, for example, where there is no educational policy at the country level, allowing each canton to have its own educational system and policies. See the Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation, art. 62, para. 1. Available at www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/ 1999/404/en. For example, in Belgium, some linguistic rights are conferred on the linguistic communities themselves. In Slovenia, a law on self-governing ethnic communities was adopted in 1994, in part guaranteeing rights of participation for recognized ethnic minorities (Italians and Hungarians initially, then extended to Roma and possibly to Germans); however, it mostly guarantees special rights of representations for these communities in loc al governments. See Council of Europe, document ACFC/SR/VI(2023)006. 24-13136