MINELRES: Estonia: Minister of Education and Research opposes Narva City Council's use of Russian

[MINELRES moderator]

Original sender: Andrei Arjupin <andrew@lichr.ee>


The Estonian Minister of Education and Research opposes Narva City
Council's use of Russian


On the 16th of June 2003, immediately after an official visit by Rolf
Ekeus, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, the Estonian
Minister of Education and Research, Toivo Maimets, expressed his opinion
on a request by the Narva City Council to use Russian as a second
internal working language.

The Constitution of Estonia (article 52) states that the official
language of state agencies and local governments shall be Estonian.
However, in localities where the language of the majority of the
residents is not Estonian, local governments may, to the extent and
pursuant to the procedure provided by law, use the language of the
majority of the permanent residents of the locality as an internal
working language. The use of foreign languages, including the languages
of national minorities, is regulated by the Law on Language. This act
requires a special approval from the Government of the Republic.

Additionally, at the end of year in 2001, a number of amendments to the
legislation were adopted which undermined the effectiveness of the
elimination of a language census from the election laws in Estonia.  At
that time, Estonian was formally made the only working language of the
Estonian Parliament.  Similarly, a decision regarding local councils was
made on 4 December 2001. Pursuant to that decision, the use of a
minority language at local council sessions is limited to the right to
"interpret the meetings of a local council... into a minority
language".  This means that even in the regions where a majority of the
population belong to a minority, the deputies of the local councils are
obliged to use only Estonian during working sessions.  

Pursuant to the above-listed Estonian legislation, at the end of last
year the Narva City Council requested the government to amend the
legislation in force and allow the Council to carry out working sessions
in the official and Russian languages.

The Minister responded by letter to the Narva City Council, stating that
he did not support its request to permit the use of Russian as a second
procedural language. He justified this decision by claiming that an
absolute majority of the Narva population certainly does not take part
in council sessions. Thus, "decisions of the council may be translated
in other languages pursuant to article 10 of the Law on Language and the
content of these decisions, when needed, can be made clear through
explanations by Russian speaking officials", stated the Minister.

Mr. Maimets referred also to the fact that it was not clear how the use
of the official language, Estonian, would be assured if a foreign
language was permitted as a second language in the Narva City Council
meetings. "The role of the use of foreign languages can be increased in
Narva society only when the use of the official language is guaranteed
in accordance with legislation," said Maimets.

During the last couple of years the Narva City Council has discussed the
possibility of using Russian already three times. 

It is instructive to mention that pursuant to Estonian law the opinion
of the Minister cannot be regarded as a decision of the Government. 
This means that the request of the Narva City Council is still -- 7
months after submission -- unresolved.  Because of this, some deputies
of the Narva City Council now plan to address the courts with a
complaint regarding the Government's extended inactivity and failure to
give an official answer on the Council's proposal. 


Andrei Arjupin 
Head of the Legal Aid Department 
The Legal Information Centre for Human Rights 
Nunne 2, 10133, Tallinn, Estonia 
tel: (+372) 64 64 270 
tel: (+372) 51 31 156 
fax: (+372) 64 64 272 
e-mail: andrew@lichr.ee 
Internet: http://www.lichr.ee/