Thread: AL: Supreme Court Hears Drivers License Language Arguments

Supreme Court Hears Drivers License Language Arguments

Thursday, Jun 21, 2007 - 12:51 PM

By Scott Mauldin

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- A war of words played out in the state supreme court Wednesday.

There’s a legal fight was over what language should be used on Alabama driver's license exams.

Here's the issue -- state law says only English can be used for official state business, but as many as 12 languages are used on the drivers tests, according to arguments in court.

Challenging the non-English tests led to the state's high court Wednesday.

In spite of a 1990 constitutional amendment making English the official state language, multi-language testing was put back into practice, in violation of state law.

The Southeastern Legal Foundation is suing to prohibit non-English tests.

"I think it's very bad for the state of Alabama, because it's a public safety concern that we need to have people with a common language on our roads,â€

Please provide update when available, thanks.