Minority issues in Latvia, No. 29

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Subject: Minority issues in Latvia, No. 29

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Minority issues in Latvia, No. 29


Minority issues in Latvia, No. 29
Prepared by the Latvian Human Rights Committee (F.I.D.H.)
May 7, 2001
 

Next controversy over personal name spelling 

The Regulations of the Cabinet of Ministers "On the Writing and
Identification of Names and Surnames" stipulate that personal names
and surnames must be written in documents according to grammar of the
Latvian language. However, the original form of the personal name in
Latin transliteration can be used on some other page of the ID.  

Mr. Russkih, whose son was born in the late March, was issued the
son's birth certificate, where the surname was written as "Ruskihs",
i.e. with one "s" in the middle (since consonants cannot be duplicated
in Latvian). In the father's ID issued prior to the adoption of the
Regulations mentioned above, his surname is spelled as "Russkihs" -
i.e. with added mandatory Latvian ending "s" but still with duplicated
"s" in the middle. Thus, the son's name was distorted further. In
response to the complaint addressed to the State Language Center, a
relevant expert institution, the plaintiff was notified that "his own
surname was recorded in wrong spelling in his passport", and instead
of fixing the problem with his son's name, he was invited to come to
the passport office to change his own and his wife's name records in
their IDs. 

The case is particularly sensitive, because the surname in question is
ancient and directly related to the person's identity - it means
"Russian" in the Russian language, with traditional ending widespread
in Siberia. Mr Russkih declared he was not satisfied with the
opportunity to have his original name only "in brackets" on some back
page in his and his son's ID, and will contest this decision of the
administrative authorities in court.

 
"Yurmala's News" in Russian will be published again
 
The newspaper "Yurmalas Zinas" (Yurmala's News), issued by the City
Council of Yurmala - a famous resort town at the seaside - was
published in two languages, Latvian and Russian, since autumn 2000.
However, the term of agreement on publishing the Russian version of
the newspaper between the City Council and editorial staff expired on
April 1 and was not prolonged because of the lack of budget. The City
Council continued to finance the Latvian version only. Some
commentators explained this with the fact that the municipal elections
were held in March 2001, and that the Russian version was launched
intentionally before the elections, in order to help then town
leadership to develop effective pre-election campaign among the town's
sizeable Russian-speaking minority. 

However, the newly elected City Council has found finances to renew
the Russian version's publishing. "Yurmala's News" in Russian will be
published again since June 1, and it will be original edition (not the
translation of the Latvian version) (for more details see "Vesti
Segodnya" � "The News Today", April 28,
http://www.cm.lv/index.php3?br=$br&g=2001&m=04&d=28&w1=r&r=1&w2=p&pub=015#banner
).
 

Speaker of the Parliament attacks foreign experts
 
May 4 is the day of proclamation of the Declaration on Latvia's
Independence in 1990. Every year a ceremonial session of the Saeima
(Parliament) takes place on this day. This year the Saeima's speaker
Mr. Janis Straume ("For Fatherland and Freedom", most radical
nationalistic party in the Saeima), devoted a big share of his speech
to the State Language Law. Mr Straume criticized Latvia's politicians
for "long and unnecessary discussions with foreign experts during the
adoption of the Law", as well as expressed his concerns about "uniting
some political forces in Latvia who appreciated" the experts'
recommendations.     

Mr. Straume also mentioned the problem of ratification of the
Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. In the
speaker's view, "we should evaluate whether the politics started in
1992, according to which all permanent residents of Latvia (of
non-Latvian origin � A.D.) are considered national minorities, is the
only right one" ("Vesti Segodnya" � "The News Today", May 5,
http://www.cm.lv/index.php3?br=$br&g=2001&m=05&d=05&w1=r&r=2&w2=p&pub=010#banner
).

It should be mentioned that no legislative definition of a national
minority has been ever adopted in Latvia. The Law "On the Unrestricted
Development and Right to Cultural Autonomy of Latvia's Nationalities
and Ethnic Groups" was adopted in March 1991, i.e. prior to the
introduction of the citizenship legislation, this is why this law,
indeed, does not distinguish between citizens and permanent resident
non-citizens. However, this law is in fact merely a declaration,
contains no substantive provisions, and was hardly ever applied in
practice. In the meantime, there is no law on national minorities in
Latvia. Corresponding draft elaborated by the working group in 1999 by
request of the Ministry of Justice, has never been submitted to the
parliament. 

The speaker's statements can be evaluated as aiming at preparing soil
for ratificatioon of the Framework Convention (signed by Latvia still
in May 1995), in the most restrictive variant. Mr Straume virtually
designed restrictive declaration to the ratification document, which
must severely limit a number of persons belonging to recognised
minority groups. Besides, Latvian political leadership wishes to
ratify the Framework Convention with several reservations (see
Minority issues in Latvia, No. 26,
http://racoon.riga.lv/minelres/archive//03102001-09:28:45-7628.html ).
According to some sources, the government intensifies behind-the-scene
negotiations with the representatives of international organisations,
trying to persuade them to accept Latvian ratification of the FCNM
with substantial reservations. In our view, this plan, if implemented,
will crucially undermine the entire FCNM machinery. 


News of law-making
 
On April 26 the Saeima (Parliament) of Latvia rejected several
proposals of the pro-minority faction "For Human Rights in United
Latvia" ("HRUL") aimed at safegurading the non-citizens' rights
("non-citizens" are the citizens of the former USSR, who came to
Latvia during the Soviet period and have no any citizenship;
non-citizens constitute over 25% of the current population of Latvia;
almost all of them belong to national minorities).
 
One of the proposals was related to the status of a politically
repressed person. Persons recognised as politically repressed by the
Communist or Nazi regime are granted some social advantages in Latvia.
According to the first version of the Law on the status of these
persons adopted in 1992, this status was given to every person, who
was politically repressed in the territory of the former USSR or
Germany. However, a new law was adopted in 1995, which limited the
scope of persons eligible for this status to the Latvian citizens only
(non-citizens can claim the status of the politically repressed only
in some cases, eg if they were repressed in the territory of Latvia
after 1945 by the Communist regime, or were brought to the territory
of Latvia when being minors, detained in concentration camps or
prisons here by the Nazi regime). The "HRUL" proposed to restore the
initial version of the definition of the politically repressed person
- i.e. to extend the right to apply for this status to all permanent
residents of Latvia who were in fact subject to political repressions.
However, the amendment was rejected by the majority of
parliamentarians.  
 
Another proposal concerned the recognition of diplomas issued abroad.
According to the Law "On the Regulated Professions and Recognition of
Professional Qualifications" proposed by the Government, diplomas
issued abroad are recognised in Latvia only for the citizens of
Latvia. Thus, if a citizen of Latvia and a non-citizen of Latvia both
have the same diplomas issued abroad, the diploma is recognised for
the citizen only. Even supported by the corresponding parliamentary
committee, the proposal to equate the non-citizens' diplomas to the
citizens' diplomas was rejected by the majority, after the noisy
protests on the part the radical nationalistic factions. One of the
reasons mentioned by MP Mrs. Anta Rugate (The People's Party): "there
is no such status as the 'non-citizen' in the European Union, we will
not be understood if we use the term" - in other word, it was not
considered wise to draw attention of the EU to the existence of the
big group of the non-citizens in Latvia. 

In our view, these decisions are two more examples of unreasonable and
disproportionate restrictions of the rights of permanent resident
non-citizens.  

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

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