percent of the population and are mainly concentrated in the southern part
of Thailand. Evidently, they constitute ‘a substantial number of individuals
concentrated in a region’.
Thailand’s language policy could therefore be said to be discriminatory in
the sense that it does not provide state education and services for the
Malay minority in the Malay language. Additionally, as previously
mentioned, the state officials in the south are mostly Thai-Buddhists who
do not speak the Malay language. This has led to much miscommunication
between the Malays and state officials.52 The high concentration of Malays
in the south warrants the presence of public authorities that can speak the
Malay language.53 Thus, the failure to provide the Malays with public
officials who can speak the Malay language amounts to an exclusive
language policy (in favour of the Thai language only) which could be said
to be unreasonable and unjustified in the circumstances, and therefore to
constitute discrimination on the ground of language in breach of
Thailand’s legal obligations under Article 26 of the ICCPR.54
3.7 A Non-Discriminatory Approach: The Sliding-Scale Model
How then to approach the situation in southern Thailand that is reasonable
and justified in terms of the language policies affecting the Malay
minority? The answer may be found in what is sometimes described as a
‘sliding-scale’ model, and which is presented in various forms. For
example, Article 8 of the European Charter for Regional or Minority
Languages requires a state provide a greater degree of use of a language in
education as the number of beneficiaries increases.55 This implies that the
larger the number of speakers of a minority language in a region, the
greater use of their language should be in place.56 In compliance with this
‘sliding-scale’ model, the Malay minority, since they constitute around 80
percent of the population in the southernmost provinces, should be entitled
to a minimum right of preschool to secondary state education, or a
substantial part of the schooling years, in their own language.57 The South
West Africa Case (Second Phase) affirmed that due to the linguistic
differences of minority groups, it would be deemed reasonable and