On 28 February and 24 March 2025, Ms. Bérenger, the Junior Minister of Environment, Solid Waste Management and Climate Change, has sought to advance the view that Kreol Morisien should be introduced into parliamentary proceedings as a means of furthering democracy.
The Junior Minister supports her position by making two alternative points regarding the Constitution. First and as the primary contention, she suggests that since section 49 of the Constitution does not explicitly prohibit the use of Kreol, on a more liberal interpretation of the Constitution, its use ought to be admitted. Now, the Speaker has reluctantly ruled that the Standing Order 5, that has a similarly formulation to section 49, does not allow for the use of Kreol, but has suggested that a Select Committee be set up to consider this question.
The Junior Minister’s primary contention appears unsustainable from the outset. If Standing Order 5, as ruled upon, does not permit the use of Kreol, it is difficult to see how section 49 of the Constitution could be read as implicitly allowing it. As will be further explained below, no such implication arises from the text or structure of section 49. Moreover, it is not for the Junior Minister, the Assembly, or even the Speaker to determine the constitutional interpretation to be given to section 49. That power resides solely in the Supreme Court. It follows, therefore, that Standing Order 5 must be read in conformity with section 49, and cannot be amended in such a way as to override or expand upon the constitutional text. Any amendment to include Kreol in the Assembly’s official proceedings, without first revisiting section 49, would be unconstitutional and would be open to legal challenge before the Supreme Court.
The second argument advanced then by the Junior Minister is that if Kreol is excluded from section 49, and thus, the Assembly, section 49 must be taken to be inconsistent with freedom of expression and the democratic character of the Mauritian state guaranteed under sections 12 and 1 of the Constitution.
No doubt the Junior Minister is well-intentioned, but her arguments rest on an incomplete understanding of our Constitution and the key role of language within its framework.
Section 49 of the Constitution
Section 49 reads: “The official language of the Assembly shall be English but any member may address the Chair in French.” It is thus plain enough that English is the official language of the National Assembly. Its express designation as “official” is not of course without significance.
But what is that significance exactly?
To begin to answer that question, it is useful to turn to the Courts Act of 1945. Section 14 and 131 of that Act also establishes the primacy of English as the official language in court proceedings. Section 14(1) in similar language to section 49 of the Constitution designates English as the official language of the Supreme Court, while section 131(1) for its part designates English as the language to be used in the Intermediate and District Courts
And just like section 49 of the Constitution, sections 14 and 131 also provide for an exception to the rule. Section 14(2) allows a person appearing before the Supreme Court to give evidence or make statements in another language if they do not possess a competent knowledge of English. Section 131(1) for its part, which is exactly worded as Section 49 provides a similar accommodation for French in the Intermediate and District Courts.
This said, section 175 of the Courts Act provides that evidence given in a language other than English must be translated into English and recorded as such in the official court record. The limited exception to this rule is found in sections 176 and 189, which allow oral evidence to be taken in another language without translation but only where that language is understood by all key participants, including judges, parties, counsel, and jurors.
The comparison between Section 49 of the Constitution and sections 14 and 131 of the Courts Act is most material for three key reasons. First, these provisions give primacy and official status to English. Second, these provisions almost mirror one another, thus inviting for consistent interpretation and application. Third, the Courts Act gives a clearer picture on how the exception is expected to work.
Our Democratic Structure
There is a fundamental reason why one specific language, here English, has been given express primacy and official status across at least two key branches of our democratic structure. This is because of the necessary interplay between them in that structure.
The primary function of the National Assembly is lawmaking, and it is critical that the language in which laws are drafted, debated, and recorded be uniform, stable, and capable of carrying legal precision. The language therefore must have a standardized legal vocabulary, a tradition of legal and legislative drafting, and a technical maturity apt for complex constitutional and regulatory functions –a certain sophistication for short. The language here thus plays a vital structural role.
The laws enacted by Parliament are ultimately interpreted and applied by the judiciary. Our courts, from the district courts to the Supreme Court and of course the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, all accordingly operate in English. And there can be no doubt as to the central role and place of the Judicial Committee in our fledging and fragile democracy. Now, citizens of Mauritius of all spheres of lives have been using our courts systems every day long before our independence. Yet, there has never been any suggestion that our courts have failed the nation because the language used is beyond the populace it is to serve. Indeed, no one would dare suggest that legal argumentation or judgments settling them must be made in Kreol to be accessible.
Kreol could not in any event fulfil that purpose. It does not have the standardized legal vocabulary, a tradition of legal and legislative drafting, and a technical maturity apt for the administration of justice even if some believe that the translation of the Constitution to another language is merely a linguistic exercise. In the recent case of the Commissioner of Police v the Director of Public Prosecutions, panels of lawyers, including English Kings’ Counsel, and a full bench of the Supreme Court spent days debating the reading to be given to sections 71 and 72 of the Constitution. A singular word can in courts take all sort of dimensions. The interpretation of legal texts is a complex science, and a legal text cannot be reduced to casual translation.
Now, apart from the judicial function requiring linguistic continuity from Parliament, so does the Executive. Thus, the Executive likewise operates in English – cabinet decisions, official communications, regulations, and administrative actions are framed and published in English.
This shared linguistic medium across all three branches of government – legislative, executive,
and judicial, ensures institutional coherence and constitutional functionality. In this sense, linguistic uniformity is not opposed to democracy, it is what makes our democratic structure intelligible and operable.
The French Exception
What the Courts Act and the practice before our Courts demonstrate is that the use of French, as an exception, is one that is heavily circumscribed, even though an important body of our law is in French. Pleadings, oral and written submissions, court records and judgments are all in English.
There is then no reason to interpret and apply section 49 any differently. Both Section 49 and the Standing Orders require that the proceedings in the Assembly be in English. The records are in English. The Hansard is produced in English, which entails that any French passages must be translated and that only the English translation can be taken as the official record – precisely because English is the official language of the Assembly.
Whilst speech may be allowed in French, even then, on a proper interpretation of section 49, as is the case for the Courts Act, French ought to be allowed only where a member is unable to express himself or herself in the official language. In our courts, precisely because of the provisions of the Courts Act, Counsel will always first seek permission from the bench before examining any witness in a language other than English. Members of the Assembly wishing to address the chair in French must similarly do so, and it is for the chair to decide whether to allow it or not, bearing mind the primary role of the member as a legislator and the structural and institutional importance of the official language.
The problem arises with the normalisation of the exception in the Assembly. Whilst French was historically permitted as a concession – arguably to accommodate the apprehensive francophiles of the early post-independence years, its normalisation in the Assembly, seen especially in the last few years, has created the incorrect impression of parity with English, and that the Assembly is linguistically plural. This is also perhaps an unintended consequence of televised debates, where form begins to take primacy over substance. To add and normalise another exception, be it Kreol or Bhojpuri or any other languages historically spoken by Mauritians in that context risks undermining the very coherence and clarity that the Constitution demands of its Legislature and its legislative process.
None of this is to deny the richness or cultural relevance of Kreol or Bhojpuri or other languages. But Parliament is not a cultural forum. It is primarily a lawmaking body with Standing Orders set down precisely to strictly regulate and focus its functioning. The language used must be apt for that functioning.
The Section 12 Argument
The Junior Minister also makes the claim that freedom of expression, as protected by section 12 of the Constitution, is undermined when members are prevented from speaking Kreol, the language most accessible to the people they represent. From her perspective, the democratic state in section 1 is thus undermined.
There are several difficulties with this argument. Even assuming such a supposed democratic deficit, it is not said that it cannot be addressed practically, without meddling with the
constitutional language framework. For instance, there could be an additional dedicated channel on national television or radio to broadcast parliamentary proceedings with suitable translations. There could be distinct channels for Kreol, Bhojpuri or any other relevant language. These could also be used to carry parliamentary highlights, summaries, or panel discussions in any designated language. Hansard itself could be supplemented by explanatory summaries in Kreol. In constitutional law, there is a well-established principle that remedies must be proportionate to the mischief that they seek to address. The supposed mischief identified by the Junior Minister must, also as a matter of settled principle, be addressed first by practical and targeted solutions, before any consideration is given to revisiting the linguistic foundations of our constitutional framework.
The second difficulty is whether there is indeed an important democratic deficit that could justify revisiting the constitutional framework. This is ultimately a question of fact, and one that our Supreme Court would necessarily examine if a serious claim were made that sections 1 and 12 are contravened by the exclusion of Kreol from the Assembly. And here, the threshold would be fairly high. In any legal or political system, including those in linguistically homogeneous societies, there will always be variations in accessibility based on education levels, socio-economic background, or regional disparities. These are realities of all democratic states and not constitutional violations per se. A court would be bound to consider that Mauritius has a freely accessible public education system, which gives primacy to English across all key disciplines – mathematics, science, humanities, and social studies. English is not just the language of instruction but the language of assessment, including national and international exams administered under the Cambridge system. That some individuals may find this system challenging does not amount to a constitutional wrong requiring constitutional revision; rather, it highlights the need for greater investment in education.
To borrow a comparative example: the "King’s English" spoken in elite private schools in the United Kingdom often heard in Westminster may be far removed from the dialects of workingclass communities in, say, East London or parts of Northern England. But no serious legal scholar or court would suggest that the solution lies in discarding standard English from the judicial or legislative system. The answer lies in equipping all citizens with the tools to access those systems, not in diluting the structural language upon which they rely.
And in today’s world, where citizens enjoy widespread access to technology, digital learning platforms, and social media, much of the public engages daily with content in English. These tools have become natural extensions of informal education, often bridging gaps left by formal systems. In this environment, the claim that English is alien or inaccessible begins to lose force.
The third difficulty lies in the underlying assumption that Kreol Morisien is the unifying language, and that its use in the National Assembly would naturally reflect the linguistic identity of the Mauritian people as a whole. This, again, is not a matter of assumption. It is a question of fact, and one that the Supreme Court would have to examine carefully, drawing on sociolinguistic research, historical context, and patterns of cultural identification. Courts in other jurisdictions have done exactly this when adjudicating claims to language rights.
A review of academic research on the place of Kreol Morisien paints a complex and contested picture. While Kreol is undoubtedly the most widely spoken language, it is not universally experienced as a symbol of collective identity. For many, particularly those who trace their heritage to communities of indentured labourers or migrants from Asia, ancestral languages such as Bhojpuri, Hindi, Urdu, Tamil or Mandarin remain just as central to cultural life. For
these groups, Kreol may not carry the same emotional resonance, or may even be viewed as the language through which their own linguistic traditions were historically marginalised.
And now, as expected, there are already public expressions that Bhojpuri should be given equal consideration. The Junior Minister may not fully appreciate that just as Kreol may feel natural to her or her urban constituents, Bhojpuri is just as natural and meaningful a medium for many in rural Mauritius. Any move to institutionalise one language risks being perceived as the institutional sidelining of others, thereby creating a new form of cultural imbalance, however unintentional. A court would be required to consider this broader picture in assessing whether the promotion of Kreol truly furthers inclusion, or whether it may, in effect, replace one linguistic dominance with another that risks unsettling the (perhaps fragile) equilibrium that the Constitution presently sustains between diversity, democracy, and institutional coherence.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
There is then no straightforward constitutional argument to support the inclusion of Kreol in the proceedings of the National Assembly.
Now, if, as the Junior Minister suggests, the issue touches on section 1 of the Constitution, going to the heart of what it means to be a democratic state, and if, as indeed argued in this article, language is central to our democratic structure, then there would be a strong argument that any attempt to revise this structure must meet the requirements of section 47(3) of the Constitution. That is to say, it must pass the threshold required for altering fundamental provisions, and it must be pursued with a clear democratic mandate, not through interpretive innovation or political expediency. This is especially the case since this issue was not part of the manifesto of the alliance in power.
The proposal to introduce Kreol may be well-meaning. But it is a classic case of the thin end of the wedge: a seemingly modest concession that could gradually unsettle the coherence of our constitutional order. Once linguistic pluralism is institutionalised, it risks cascading into claims of parity from all linguistic communities, turning what is now a clear and stable structure into a patchwork of exceptions and accommodations. That is not the path to a stronger democracy. In plain English, if it isn't broken, it doesn't need fixing.
Vimalen Reddi