 nationals of non-Polish speech were granted adequate facilities for the use of their language, either orally or in writing, before the courts. According to certain authors, a drafting error occurred concerning language use before the courts ("devant les tribunaux"), since it is indisputable that this obligation concerned the use of language not only before the courts but before every other authority as well. Notwithstanding this, the establishment the official language was to be a separate and independent decision of the Polish Government.
Article 8 concerned directly the minorities. It established the protection of those Polish nationals who belonged to racial, religious or linguistic minorities in so far as the treaty guaranteed that they should enjoy the same treatment and security in law and in fact as the other Polish nationals. The drafters of the treaty sought to protect minorities against discrimination on the part of the state. The Article guaranteed the right of association to them, in so far as they were granted an equal right to establish, manage and control at their own expense charitable, religious and social institutions, schools and other educational establishments (e.g. schools), the right to use their own language and to exercise their religion freely therein.
Article 9 settled matters related to public education. It established that the Polish Government was to provide adequate facilities for ensuring that in the primary schools the instruction shall be given to the children of Polish nationals of other than Polish speech through the medium of their own language. This provision, however, could not prevent the Polish Government from making the teaching of the Polish language obligatory in these schools. According to Paragraph 2, racial, religious or linguistic minorities were to be assured an equitable share in the enjoyment and application of the sums which may be provided out of public funds, for educational, religious or charitable purposes. However, provisions of Article 9 were to be applied in those towns and districts only where there was a considerable proportion ("proportion considérable") of Polish nationals belonging to racial, religious or linguistic minorities. Paragraph 3 narrowed the stipulations in the case of Polish citizens of German speech further down: the provisions of this Article applied to them only in that part of Poland which was German territory on 1 August 1914.
Let us expand a bit on one of the conceptual units of the passage discussed above, namely that minorities (!) were to be assured an equitable share in the enjoyment and application of the sums which may be provided out of public funds. Did this provision entail the general recognition of the legal personality of minorities? In my opinion, this is connected more to a possible way of exercising the right to association, as political right (already mentioned with respect to Article 8), according to which minorities could set up organisations for the establishment and maintenance of educational institutions. These organisations were to transfer the sums received from public funds to the schools under their supervision. This meant basically a role that the state performed with respect to public education in general. If minorities did not have such an institution, the state authorities had to break down the sums to be transferred to the schools, which was not always advantageous for the interests of the minorities. László Buza remarked: "It is undeniable that minority legislation is defective in this respect: it grants certain rights to the minority as such but it does not define the minority that would have to exercise this right. Furthermore, it does not stipulate for its establishment. [...] Treaties and declarations do not establish these organisations because that would entail minority authority to a certain extent; however, general minority legislation is based not on the principle of minority autonomy."
Article 10 of the Polish Minorities Treaty is an exception with respect to one minority to the above-mentioned gene