CfP: The Use of Minority Languages in the Justice System

The Use of Minority Languages in the Justice System
Just. Journal of Language Rights and Minorities,
Revista de Drets Lingüístics i Minories

4 (2) — October 2025

Editors:
Xabier Arzoz & Vicenta Tasa

Just. Journal of Language Rights and Minorities, Revista de Drets Lingüístics i Minories invites the academic community to submit article proposals for a special issue adopting a multidisciplinary perspective on the right of linguistic minorities to use their own languages in courts of law, particularly in multilingual States.

Submissions are welcome in English, French, Catalan, or Spanish. Interdisciplinary studies are particularly encouraged on the following topics, among others:

• The significance of language rights within the justice system for the quality of the judiciary and the strength of the rule of law;
• The language rights of citizens in judicial proceedings;
• The importance of linguistic training in the justice system, including the selection and appointment processes for judges and prosecutors, the linguistic training of legal practitioners, and the organization of legal aid in relation to minority languages;
• The working languages of courts and the languages used in judicial proceedings;
• Linguistic lawfare.

Interested authors are invited to send 500- to 700-word proposals and inquiries directly to the guest editors: Xabier Arzoz Santisteban (xarzoz@der.uned.es) and Vicenta Tasa Fuster (vicenta.tasa@uv.es) by 20 January 2025. Please include a brief bionote about the authors and their affiliations in a separate file. All abstracts and manuscripts should use the journal’s adaptation of the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) for both citation and drafting. A summary of the drafting CMS guidelines is available in Just’s author guidelines (https://ojs.uv.es/index.php/JUST/about/submissions). Authors of abstracts that are accepted for consideration will be invited to submit a full manuscript that is between 6000 and 8000 words in length (exclusive of abstract and references but including footnotes). Every manuscript will be submitted to a double-blind peer review that includes at least two referees.

The publication of this special issue will adhere to the following editorial timeline:

Submission of abstracts (500-700 words) to guest editors

20 January 2025

Decision on abstracts

30 January 2025

Submission of full manuscripts

31 March 2025

Final versions of articles

15 June 2025

Decision on publication

15 July 2025

Publication of special issue

9 October 2024