Ivan Bošnjak: National Councils Are Still Insufficiently Recognized Bodies
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Ružić Discusses the Forthcoming Seventh Report on the Implementation Elections for National Minority of the Action Plan for the Realization of Councils with Representatives the Rights of National Minorities of Minorities Presented 47 Minority Newjune 2s 018 Ivan Bošnjak: National Councils Are Still Insufficiently Recognized Bodies Languages and Scripts of "The Home Guardian" National Minorities in the Started from Bačko Parliament Petrovo Selo HIGHLIGHTS EDITORIAL 47 Minister Branko Ružić Meets with Repr esentatives of Discr iminati on at Work National Minori ty Councils During th e me eting of repre sentatives o f Prior to f orwardin g the Dra ft Law on Ame ndme nts to the L aw on Nat ional M i - national minori ty counci ls w ith Brank o Ružić, nority C ouncils to th e Parliament, Bra nk o Ružić, Ministe r of Public Adm inistration the Ministe r of Public Administra tion and and Local Self-Government, reminded that the Ministry of Public Administration Local Self-Government, held at the National and Lo cal S elf-Governm ent has prep ared fo ur l aws in th e fie ld of pro moti on Counc il of the Hungar ian Nati onal Minority of rights and position of members of national minorities to better conditions on May 23, the partic ipants discus se d the for the realiz ation of their righ ts in the fi elds of cultu re, information, employment, new law regulating th e position of m inorities. and education. The mee ting was attended by representa - It is the area of education that is at the center of attention every year, and this tives of the H ungar ian , Croa tian , Bu njevac, Germ a n minorities an d the Uni on of Jewish traditionally happens in the end and in the beginning of the school year. Municipalities. While pri mar y and se conda ry sch ools that teach i n minority la nguage s are struggling with an ever-decreasing number of enrolled students and trying to Seventh Report on the attract new stu dents in as man y wa ys as possib le, some fa cu lties se em to be Implementation of the Action trying to disco u rage, e v en r epe l, futur e students - mem ber s of m ino rity com - Plan for Minorities munities. More precisely, the Faculty of Law in Novi Sad, for which the Appellate Court earlier ruled that it discriminated against Hungarian students because Presenting of the S eve nth Report on the Im - itI did no t allow the en tran ce exa m in th e la nguages o f natio nal minorities, is plementation of the Action Plan for the Reali - again in the focus o f t he public. The w ebsite of t he Facu lty states th a t a member zation of the Rights of National Minorities on of a national minori ty w hos e mother to ngue is an officia l language in t he June 13, Director of the Office for Human and territory of the AP Vojvodina can apply for the entrance examination in his Minority Ri ghts , Suzana Paun ović, stressed that zbog toga mšoth er t ongue on th e basi s of his per sonal request, but it is also env isaged t o this report refers to the first quarter of 2018 have a written and oral verification of the proficiency of the language in which and that the im plement atio n of activ ities from the Actio n Plan for M inoriti es is regularly m o - the teaching is conducted, i.e. the Serbian language, which is organized after passing th e entrance exam, before d ete rmini ng the stand ings of c andidates nitored. Paunović stated that a total of 111 ac - što uzdišemo za „starletama“ koje tivities envisaged by the Action Plan for the for enrollment. This decision of the Faculty was condemned by students, Realization of the Rights of National Minorities msos tly memb ers of t he Hung arian n ational minority, as discriminatory. The have been completed and that, of 75 imple - National Council of the Hungarian National Minority thinks it is discrimination menters of activities, 63 have submitted con - whi ch puts so me student s in a wor se pos ition an d that it is a pr ovo cation of tributions to the Repo rt. the Faculty of La w, which n ot only jeo pard iz es the equ ality of minori ty e duc ation in th e moth e r tongu e in Ser bia, but als o treats pup ils stud ying in minorit y lan - Getting to Kno w Each guage s a s second class citi ze ns. Other Through Mih ail Njilaš, D eputy Prime Minister o f the Provincial Go vern me nt and Pro vincial Secretary for Education, Regulations, Administration and National Minorities a M u lti-Lingu al Quiz - National Communities, expressed the expectation that "the Faculty of Law will, in a short time, realize that it is a discriminatory step and that they will As a part of the pro ject of the Pr ovincial Go vernment "A ffirmation of M ulticul - give up on this practice. " However, at the time of writing this text, there are turalism an d Toler ance in Vo jvod ina" still ol d rules for passing the e ntran ce exa m on t he Facul ty’s w ebsite. No cha nge Kanjiža, Kovač ica a nd Sombor h osted whatsoever. the regional quizzes f or secondary school students "How Much Do We Know Each Other?" from the 12th Cycle. The organizer and implementer of the 30 d iffer ent national m inorities live in Serbia project is the Provincial S ecretariat for Education, Regulations, Administration and National Minorities - National Com - munities of A P Vojvod ina. Festiva l "Kalin a" He ld For the Fif teenth T ime On J une 9-1 0, the 15th Ukrainian Culture Fe - stival "Kalina" was held. This year's festival took place in the Cultural Center "Kula" in Kula. Specific for this festival is that it is held in five cities alternately, where a large number of Ukrain ians live. Th e importan ce of the fe - stival is also reflected in the fact that all cult ural all societies that cherish Ukrainian culture in E newsle er for the Republic of S erb ia p articipate in it and, and ON du ring festival days, pr esent th e audience with choreographies and songs that they pr epared duri ng previous t welve months. www.minoritynews.rs Minority News Portal OUR INTERVIEW: IVAN BOŠNJAK, STATE SECRETARY IN THE MINISTRY OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT National Councils Are Still Insufficiently Recognized Bodies fter more than two years of work on the preparation of amendments to the two key minority policy laws, the Government of the Republic of Serbia adopted draft laws amending the Law on the Protection of Rights and Freedoms of National Minorities and the Law on Amend - ments to the Law on National Minority Councils and sent them to the National Assembly oAf the Republic of Serbia for adoption. The draft amendments to the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Freedoms of National Minorities were finalized more than a year ago and we discussed them in great detail at that time. Today, we will address amendments to the other key law, the Law on National Minority Councils, with Ivan Bošnjak, State Secretary in the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government. How would you rate the whole process councils of national minorities. The rights of members of national minorities of preparing amendments to these work of the Republic Council for Na - and I can say with great pleasure that laws? To what extent has this process tional Minorities has been established, we have done a great job. As you said, been transparent and inclusive? and now, in practice, the Prime Minister, a year ago we completed the work on or the then Prime Minister, and the the amendments to the Law on the I can say with great pride that, in the highest representatives of state bodies Protection of Rights and Freedoms of past four years, between the two cycles meet with representatives of national National Minorities, which had originally of elections for national minority coun - minority councils. In the meantime, the been adopted in 2002 under completely cils, I have been tasked with overseeing Action Plan for Chapter 23 and the so- different conditions and, I would say, the entire process. In 2014, when the called Special Action Plan for Improving in another state, in the then State Union then Minister of the Public Administra - the Position of National Minorities have of Serbia and Montenegro. It was nec - tion and Local Self Government was been ratified. During the process of im - essary to modernize this law, but also the Deputy Prime Minister, Kori plementation of the activities from this to bring some solutions into it, so that Udovički, my colleagues and I entered plan, we have also come to the amend - other regulations concerning the rights a serious dialogue with the national ments of two key laws concerning the of national minorities, not only from 3 Minority News the portfolio of this ministry, could be cils indicated pointed to? of numerous state institutions, also in - modernized or used in full. To this end, cluded five representatives of the Co - as one of the key amendments to this We can talk about previous shortcom - ordination National Councils of National law, we have introduced the possibility ings.