Minority issues in Latvia, No. 39

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Subject: Minority issues in Latvia, No. 39

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Minority issues in Latvia, No. 38


Minority issues in Latvia, No. 39
Prepared by the Latvian Human Rights Committee (F.I.D.H.)
November 16, 2001


Content

- State language regulations amended: follow-up to the "Ignatane case" 
- Prospects of minority education in Latvia discussed in Daugavpils
- Chairperson of the Latvian PACE delegation on the OSCE and minority
protection
- Extra examinations for minority students at the University of
Latvia: a discriminatory pattern?
 

State language regulations amended: follow-up to the "Ignatane case" 

We have already covered the "Ignatane case" dealt with by the UN Human
Rights Committee (for more details see Minority issues in Latvia, No.
34,
http://racoon.riga.lv/minelres/archive//08132001-10:18:44-14805.html
). The full text of the Committee�s Views is available on MINELRES at
http://www.riga.lv/minelres/un/cases/UNHRC_Ignatane_2001.html .

Following the views adopted by the HR Committee, the governmental
working group elaborated amendments to the language regulations
concerning procedure of the state language proficiency examinations
held by the State Language Centre. On November 6 the Cabinet of
Ministers adopted these amendments.
 
According to the amendments, the State Language Centre's officials (so
called "language inspectors") will have the right only "to inspect
authenticity of the state language proficiency certificate". Thus,
their authority "to take out and inspect state language proficiency
certificates, which do not correspond to the level of the state
language proficiency or to the requirements of rules of the state
language proficiency certification" enivisaged before, are abolished.
In other words, the state language inspectors retain the authority to
check the validity of the documents but cannot conduct additional
examinations for their holders any longer. 

Besides that, the new amendments provide an opportunity to renew lost
or destroyed state language proficiency certificate (according to the
previous version, it was possible only within one year after the
examination).

The new wording of the regulations seems somewhat uncertain. The State
Language Centre can inspect authenticity of the state language
proficiency certificate in different ways. However, the Cabinet of
Ministers states in its press release, "the amendments eliminate a
possibility to hold a repeated state language proficiency certificate
examination for a person, who already possesses a legally issued
certificate" (the official daily "Latvijas Vestnesis" ("The Latvian
Herald"), November 7). "Does it mean that the State Language Centre's
officials have no right to hold a repeated state language examination
anymore, if there is no proof of illegal issuing of the state language
proficiency? Or
it is sufficient that a state language inspector has a subjective
opinion that a person does not know Latvian and could not receive the
certificate legally, like it was before the amendments are adopted?
Unfortunately, there is no clear answer in the legal text", MP from
the pro-minority faction "For Human Rights in United Latvia" ("HRUL")
Miroslav Mitrofanov commented to our newsletter.

The pro-minority faction welcomed adoption of the amendments, but it
believes, that the language requirements for deputy candidates (they
must produce certificate of the highest ("3B") level of the state
language proficiency to be registered by the Election Commission) must
be abolished under the UN Human Rights Committee's Views. The Saeima
(Parliament) rejected such amendments to the electoral laws proposed
by "HRUL" on October 23 (see Minority issues in Latvia, No. 38,
http://racoon.riga.lv/minelres/archive//11102001-13:09:24-14154.html
). Other parliamentary factions consider that the Views do not provide
obligation to abolish these requirements for Latvia. 

MP from the radical nationalistic ruling party "For Fatherland and
Freedom" Palmira Lace told that she was indignant at the decision of
the government and her faction intends to inspect how her party's
ministers voted on the issue (the newspaper "Vesti Segodnya" ("The
News Today"), November 8,
http://www.cm.lv/index.php3?br=$br&g=2001&m=11&d=08&w1=&w2=p&pub=001#banner
).

Head of the State Language Centre Dzintra Hirsha also is indignant at
the amendments. She believes that they run counter to the State
Language Law. She assumed that under these conditions, the Centre will
follow directions of the Law, not the Regulations. Besides, the Centre
will bring an action in court on the issue. Mrs Hirsha told, "The
state does not throw doubt upon the document, but upon proficiency
certified by the document, proficiency and usage" (interview for the
TV-program "Panorama", November 7,
http://www.latnet.lv/onlinetv/tv1/index.php?id=789434 ).
 

Our commentary. 
The main factor for the government in this controversy is its
articulate striving to close the OSCE Mission to Latvia in this year.
In this view, the government cannot ignore the UN Human Rights
Committee's Views. On the other hand, the political landscape in the
parliament does not give any considerable chance to amend the State
Language laws, the more so that election campaign has in fact already
started (the next parliamentary elections in Latvia will be held in
early October 2002). The provision on the language requirements for
deputy candidates is established by law. However, the UN HR Committee
did not declare the very provision discriminatory and contrary to
Latvia's obligations under ICCPR (still, the Committee did not
confirmed its compatibility with ICCPR, too). Formally, the Committee
found the procedure of examination a violation of the plaintiff's
human rights, and this procedure has been amended. In our view, it is
rather unfortunate that the UN HR Committee avoided clear evaluation
of the "language criteria" from the point of view of
non-discrimination on the basis of language. Hopefully, the soon
forthcoming decision of the European Court of Human Rights on the
similar "Podkolzina case" will bring more clarity on this problem (for
details see Minority issues in Latvia, No. 26,
http://racoon.riga.lv/minelres/archive//03102001-09:28:45-7628.html).


Prospects of minority education in Latvia discussed in Daugavpils

The European Centre for Minority Issues organised the seminar
"Prospects of Minority Education in Latvia" in Daugavpils - the second
biggest city of Latvia, inhabited mainly by Russian-speakers - on
November 1-4. 

Representative of the organisers Vadim Poleshchuk from the Legal
Information Centre for Human Rights (Estonia), told us, "Seven MPs,
several senior state officials (incl. Mrs Aldermane, Head of
Naturalization Board, Mrs Papule, Head of Integration Division of the
Ministry of Education and Science), representatives of local
authorities (e.g. Mrs Jankovska, First Deputy Chairman of the
Daugavpils City Council), minority rights experts, minority NGOs
activists and headmasters of local minority schools took part in the
event. An ongoing reform of minority education in Latvia was the main
topic of the seminar. The participants discussed practical aspects of
introduction of bilingual education and of stipulated transition of
minority secondary schools to Latvian as a language of instruction
since 2004". 

During the seminar members of the NGO LASHOR (Association for Support
of Russian-Language Schools in Latvia, http://www.lashor.lv) presented
new models of bilingual programs for national minority schools (for
more details see Minority issues in Latvia, No. 38,
http://racoon.riga.lv/minelres/archive//11102001-13:09:24-14154.html
). At the same time, the state officials acknowledged that problems
with the transition to Latvian as a sole language of instruction in
minority secondary schools do exist, but maintained that these
problems can be solved at the level of the Ministry of Education and
Science, without changes in the Education Law.

"Officials of the Ministry offer to identify some schools, where the
provisions of the Law cannot be implemented on time, and postpone
implementation of the provisions there. Another idea of the officials
is to determine proportions between the state language and minority
language in educational programs for minority schools (for example,
70% of time in Latvian and 30% - in minority language). Local
governments also could grant financial support for additional time of
teaching in minority languages. But the Ministry cannot guarantee that
it is possible to implement even these ideas without amendments to the
Law and changes in governmental politics in the field of minority
education. They see the problem, but wish to solve it only at the
level of the Ministry. It is hardly possible", MP Miroslav Mitrofanov,
participant of the seminar, told us.

On November 5 Head of the Department of General Education of the
Ministry of Education and Science Guntis Vasilevskis and Head of the
Integration Division of the Ministry Evija Papule held a press
conference, which could be considered as a kind of "follow-up" to the
seminar. Guntis Vasilevskis said that the problem of transition to
Latvian as a language of instruction in minority secondary schools is
"too politicised" and the Russian-language media inform about it "in a
biased manner". The officials informed about different opportunities
to maintain minority language as one of the languages of instruction
in minority schools after the transition. 

Our commentary. 
In our view, the position taken by the high-ranking officials of the
Ministry of Education is one more evidence that the problem persists,
but the officials try to achieve impossible things: to solve it
without amendments to the legislative acts. Of course, state servants
cannot criticise the existing laws - they have just to obey them.
Therefore, they are forced to advocate current legislation, even if
they, as professionals, see its serious flaws. Anyway, accusation in
"biased coverage by media" is usually the last "argument", used when
all other arguments are exhausted. 


Chairperson of the Latvian PACE delegation on the OSCE and minority
protection

On November 10 the popular Latvian-language daily "Lauku Avize" ("The
Rural Newspaper") published the article "What is the OSCE and whom
does it serve?" written by Vaira Paegle, MP from the ruling People's
Party and
head of Latvia's delegation in the Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe. Mrs Paegle considers unacceptable that Latvia's
officials are put under international pressure and are demanded to
retreat from the state language politics concerning language
requirements for deputy candidates. "These demands do not comply with
Latvia's interests", Mrs Paegle asserts. In Mrs Paegle's view, the
OSCE Mission to Latvia has fulfilled all its tasks and must be closed.
She also stresses Russia's influence upon the OSCE and claims that
"Russia is one of the main sponsors of the OSCE". 

Mrs Paegle declares that she is against ratification of the Framework
Convention for the Protection of National Minorities unless the
Committee of Ministers of the CoE concretises "indefinite chapters of
the Convention", e.g. determines specific criteria for the "risk
minority groups". In her view, these minorities are those, which are
unsafe in the field of language, culture and demography and which do
not have "their own ethnic state (e.g. Roma)". Other minorities (at
least in Latvia) will enjoy fundamental rights, and discrimination
should be prohibited, but they will not have state-financed schools
and will not use their language before public authorities. In the end
of the article, Mrs Paegle writes, "We, deputies working in
inter-parliamentary organisations, have to work much more actively in
order to improve the quality of the acts of international law and to
disprove claims of organizations and minority rights experts motivated
by political or selfish reasons".

Our commentary. 
We evaluate this comment as indicating heated debates within the
ruling coalition on what recommendations in the field of minority
rights are to be accepted in exchange for the closing of the OSCE
Mission to Latvia, and which ones should be rejected. We expect that
it is not the last public statement of the leading politicians in this
discussion. In the meantime, we deeply regret that the leader of
Latvian parliamentary delegation in PACE expresses so little
solidarity with the basic values of the Council of Europe and
questions the universal applicability of these values enshrined in the
human rights instruments. 


Extra examinations for minority students at the University of Latvia:
a discriminatory pattern?

Everybody who wishes to enter the University of Latvia (the biggest
state university in Latvia), has to pass two entrance examinations.
Each applicant has to pass the first examination in the state
(Latvian) language, regardless of his/her ethnicity, mothertongue or
language in which he/she graduated from secondary school. The content
of another entry exam depends on the chosen program of studies.
Results of both examinations make the final result, which determines
whether the applicant is accepted. 

Students of the University approached MP from the pro-minority faction
"For Human Rights of United Latvia" Yuri Sokolovsky and informed that
one more examination in the state language - at the end of studies -
is obligatory for only those students who received their secondary
education in languages other than Latvian. 

Mr Sokolovsky addressed the rector of the University Mr Lacis, asking
whether this unequal treatment of the students on the basis of their
language of secondary education (de facto on the basis of native
language) should not be considered discriminatory. All students pass
the entry exam in Latvian. All students study in Latvian (it is the
only language of instruction at the University, except for one program
- Slavic philology). In the meantime, only students who received the
secondary education in languages other than Latvian must pass extra
language examination. Besides, all of them had to pass mandatory state
language examination when graduated from the secondary school, and
practically all of them possess valid state language proficiency
certificates.

Mr Lacis answered that, according to the principle of autonomy of
universities, the University of Latvia is entitled to determine
content and forms of studies. There is no discrimination, because
there is a reasonable basis for extra examination on the state
language for the students who received their secondary education in
languages other than Latvian. There is a need for two examinations,
because they have different aims � the entry examination determines
whether a person can study in Latvian, but the second one determines
whether a person has necessary state language proficiency to work in
his/her profession. 

Mr Sokolovsky intends continue investigation of the possibly
discriminatory language examinations at the University.


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

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