Supreme Court Case on language choice

[Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>]

Mark Eckenwiler posted this to Cyberia-L, with
Subject: Re: House panel votes behind closed doors to build in Big Brother

chris mohr writes:
+         Suppose that the use of particular languages other than English or
+ a few other common ones, such as Spanish or French, was forbidden over the
+ telephone

Interestingly, there is some Supreme Court case law arguably on point.
In _Yu Cong Eng v. Trinidad_, 271 US 500 (1926), the Supreme Court
considered the validity of a Philippine statute that prohibited the
keeping of business records in lanuages other than English, Spanish,
or "any local dialect."  (I'll omit an explanation of why the Court
was analyzing Philippine law under the U.S. Constitution.)  The Court
found that in charging the petitioner (who kept his books in Chinese),
the Philippines had deprived him of liberty and property w/o due
process and had deprived him of equal protection under the laws.  (I
should add that the legislation, which would also have technically
applied to records in German or Urdu, was known locally as the Chinese
Bookkeeping Act.)

Note, however, that the Court observed in the same breath that "the
Philippine government may make every reasonable requirement of its
taxpayers to keep proper records of their business transactions in
English or Spanish . . . ."  271 US at 525.

--
"This case presents the perhaps unprecedented situation of a court, as
litigant, petitioning itself, as court, for relief."
                                In re Skupniewitz, 73 F.3d 702 (7th Cir. 1996)
                      Mark Eckenwiler   eck@panix.com