A/79/169 that “regional languages belong to the heritage of France”, 46 the acceptance by France of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages would, according to the Constitutional Council of France, be contrary to the Constitution, “considering that the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, in that it confers specific rights to ‘groups’ of speakers of regional or minority languages, within ‘territories’ in which these languages are practiced, undermines the constitutional principles of indivisibility of the Republic, equality before the law and the unity of the French people”. 47 A second risk of this method is that it can be used by persons belonging to the dominant group to claim – contrary to the clear stipulation in the Declaration on the Rights of Persons belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities that “measures taken by States to ensure the effective enjoyment of the rights set forth in the present Declaration shall not prima facie be considered contrary to the principle of equality contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” 48 – that specific measures offering a different regime in order for persons belonging to a minority not to be discriminated against constitute discrimination against the individual rights of members of the dominant group (for example, the right to education). VIII. Effective participation of persons belonging to minorities through specific institutional design 29. Some States are structurally and institutionally organized around the co-existence of several linguistic, ethnic/national or religious communities, as is the case with Belgium (linguistic communities), Bosnia and Herzegovina (ethnic/national communities) and Lebanon (religious communities). Such an institutional structure is not built on a logic of majority/minority relationships; on the contrary, it builds a political community as a composite society comprising several non-dominant groups. For that reason, in such institutional arrangements, which are focused on the equilibrium between different communities, it is usually difficult to offer effective participation in decision-making to “other minorities” (different from the constituent communities), since that could destabilize the institutional equilibrium between the recognized groups. Such institutional schemes, although they may provide some minority groups 49 with a considerable number of rights and the possibility of effective participation in decision-making processes at the State level, are therefore not very minority-friendly in terms of persons belonging to minorities other than the constitutive recognized communities. 30. Less fundamental specific institutional designs allow for the creation of institutions in the legislative or the executive branch, specially tailored to minority representation. For example, in the legislative branch, the parliament of Hungary has a “Committee on National Minorities” 50 which can express opinions on draft legislation as an ordinary parliamentary committee. Its members represent minorities and can contribute to the adoption of decisions within the Committee, which are transmitted to the plenary. However, members of the Committee (except the Chair, who has been elected as a member of the European Parliament) cannot vote in plenary sessions of the parliament, as they are not elected. Such a mechanism could therefore be __________________ 46 47 48 49 50 24-13136 Constitution of France, art. 75-1. Constitutional Council of France, decision No. 99-412 DC of 15 June 1999, para. 10. General Assembly resolution 47/135, annex, art. 8, para. 3. Without entering into a debate about the definition of minority (for more on that issue, see the reports of the previous Special Rapporteur, Fernand de Varennes ( A/74/160 and A/75/211)), the term is used here only to refer to groups of persons sharing a common characteristic – language, religion, nationality or ethnicity – and constituting less than half of the population of the State as a whole. Act CLXXIX of 2011 on the rights of national minorities, art. 21 A and B of (available at https://njt.hu/jogszabaly/en/2011-179-00-00). 15/20