Best programming language

The vehicle registration department for the State is becoming decentralized. Each county will now handle its own registration process and will issue its own license plates. However, there needs to be some centralized checking so that counties do not duplicate license plate design yet are still distinguished from other counties. Counties also need to notify each other if an address listed for registration is not within their county but is within another county to check for fraud and tax evasion. Additionally they must maintain employment records to assist the court collection division of the state. So while there is all the traditional information that must be kept for vehicle registration there is also information that must be maintained for other state purposes. A consulting firm has narrowed the choice of programming language to Java and Pascal.

Which language do you think would be more appropriate for this application and why?