Minority issues in Latvia, No. 28

Reply-To: [email protected]
Sender: [email protected]
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 10:03:24 +0300 (EEST)
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
Subject: Minority issues in Latvia, No. 28

From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>

Original sender: Aleksejs Dimitrovs <[email protected]>

Minority issues in Latvia, No. 28


Minority issues in Latvia, No. 28
Prepared by the Latvian Human Rights Committee (F.I.D.H.)
April 18, 2001
 

Use of languages in municipal councils under control
 
According to current legislation of Latvia, every deputy candidate
must present his/her valid state language proficiency certificate to
the electoral commission in order to be registered. Although no other
legal acts determine language requirements for the persons already
elected to municipal councils, the State Language Centre even after
the elections have been held, continues to control the state language
proficiency of municipal deputies belonging to national minorities. As
a result of an anonymous complaint, the newly elected mayor of
Daugavpils (the second biggest city in Latvia, inhabited mostly by
Russian-speakers) Rihards Eigims had to pass the state language
examination, despite he has a valid state language proficiency
certificate. Mr. Eigims passed the test successfuly. The State
Language Centre announced its intention to examine the language
proficiency of at least three other officials of the Daugavpils City
Council, also following anonymous complaints ("Vesti Segodnya" - "The
News Today", April 11,
http://www.cm.lv/index.php3?br=$br&g=2001&m=04&d=11&w1=r&r=1&w2=p&pub=022#banner
).
 
The same issue became topical for representatives of national
minorities in the Riga City Council, too. A journalist of Latvian
evening newspaper "Rigas Balss" ("The Riga's Voice") made interviews
in the Latvian language with the Russian-speaking deputies of the Riga
City Council (mainly from the pro-minority faction "For Human Rights
in United Latvia"). After that tape records of the interviews were
presented to philologists - experts in the Latvian language for
analysis. The results of this analysis with the humiliating
commentaries were published in the newspaper on April 11. According to
the Committee's data, the State Language Centre is going to examine
the state language proficiency of some deputies mentioned in the
publication. All of them already have valid state language proficiency
certificates.


Latvian language training courses for naturalisation applicants
 
The Naturalisation Board has informed that 2000 non-citizens, who do
not speak the Latvian language, will have a possibility to attend
language courses free of charge. They only must pay the naturalisation
fee and submit their naturalisation application to the Naturalisation
Board. Usually the language training courses are quite expensive in
Latvia, and people with low income often cannot afford attending them.
Thus, the possibility offered by the Naturalisation Board is very
valuable (the newspaper "Chas" - "The Hour", March 30, 2001,
http://www.chas-daily.com/win/2001/03/30/l_01.html ).
 

The Conception of the Ombudsman institution in Latvia is elaborated
 
The working group established by the President's Office has completed
elaboration of the Conception of the Ombudsman institution in Latvia.
The conception is to be discussed by lawyers, politicians and state
officials. Probably, the draft Law on Ombudsman will be elaborated on
the basis of the Conception.
 
The Conception aims at creating the Ombudsman institution on the basis
of the existing National Human Rights Office, which in fact fulfils
many Ombudsman's functions now. It is suggested to create five
Ombudsman positions in Latvia: Ombudsman on the General Human Rights,
Ombudsman on the Rights of the Children, Ombudsman on Municipalities,
Ombudsman on Justice, Interior and Military Affairs, Ombudsman on the
Procedure Rights. Unfortunately, despite more than 40% of Latvia's
residents belong to national minorities, the Conception envisages
neither the Ombudsman on National Minorities nor the Ombudsman on
Non-Discrimination.
 

National Human Rights Office on the right to use minority language
before the Court
 
Mrs. S. applied to the National Human Rights Office (NHRO) of Latvia,
because her appeal had been rejected by court. The reason of rejection
was that the appeal was written in the Russian language.
 
The Civil Procedure Law provides that the court procedure is held in
the state (Latvian) language. Documents in other languages can be
presented together with translation certified by a notary (article 13
para. 2). Article 10 of the State Language Law also provides that the
documents presented to the state institutions should be in the state
language (with some exceptions for emergency situations).
 
The NHRO notes that such regulations of national legislation can
influence upon person's free access to the court, especially taking
into account high prices of translations and service of notaries. It
refers to article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and
some articles of the Framework Convention on the Protection of
National Minorities (signed but not yet ratified by Latvia) and makes
a conclusion that the state and municipal institutions, as well as
courts, should accept documents about violation of rights in the
Russian language from persons, who cannot receive the translation into
Latvian, but "the current legislation does not provide it".
 

News of law-making
 
On March 29 the Saeima (Parliament) of Latvia rejected proposals of
the pro-minority faction "For Human Rights in United Latvia", which
suggested to allow the non-citizens of Latvia (ex-citizens of the
USSR, who came to Latvia during the Soviet period, or their ancestors)
to own land without restrictions. According to the legislation in
force, a non-citizen can be the owner of land (buy it, receive as a
present, etc.) only if he/she receives an individual permission of the
municipality. A non-citizen cannot become the landowner in some areas
(for example, near the state border). In the field of land property
rights non-citizens are equated to foreigners, although they are
permanent residents of Latvia, a large part of them were born in the
country. Almost all non-citizens belong to national minorities.
 
On April 5 another significant proposal of the pro-minority faction
was rejected. The main idea of the draft amendment to the Law on
consideration of individual applications and complaints by state and
municipal officials, proposed by MP J.Sokolovsky, was the following:
to permit the state and municipal officials to speak with an
individual in any language acceptable for both sides, when considering
his/her application or complaint. According to the current
legislation, the official is obliged to use the state (Latvian)
language in this situation (with few exceptions in emergency cases).
 

Alexei Dimitrov
Latvian Human Rights Committee (F.I.D.H.)

-- 
==============================================================
MINELRES - a forum for discussion on minorities in Central&Eastern
Europe

Submissions: [email protected]  
Subscription/inquiries: [email protected] 
List archive: http://www.riga.lv/minelres/archive.htm
==============================================================