NGO Report on Implementation of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities by the Republic of Latvia
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NGO Report on Implementation of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities by the Republic of Latvia December 2007 © Latvian Human Rights Committee © Centre for Educational and Social Research “Baltic Insight” Editors: Alexei Dimitrov, Leonid Raihman Some parts of this Report are based to a large extent on the report prepared by the Latvian Human Rights Committee in 2002 (compiled by Tatyana Bogushevitch, Alexei Dimitrov, Yuri Dubrovsky, Boris Koltchanov and Leonid Raihman, available at http://www.minelres.lv/coe/report/Latvia_NGO.htm) PART I 1. Introduction Minority rights have been a particularly sensitive and politically topical issue since the restoration of independence of the Republic of Latvia. Human rights were permanently high on Latvia’s agenda, as the country strived to break away from its totalitarian past, embrace democratic values and standards and integrate into the western political, economic and security structures. Minority rights, although being an integral part of the general European human rights framework, proved to be particularly difficult to implement, especially taking into account concerns over the preservation of Latvian national identity and newly restored statehood. The task was made even more difficult as these concerns were constantly stirred up by a substantial part of Latvian political elite. The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities was signed by Latvia on 11 May 1995. However, the ratification of the Convention was delayed for more than ten years. The parliamentary opposition submitted the ratification bills for eight times, starting from May 2000, but the majority of the Saeima (national Parliament) always rejected it. Main arguments against the ratification mentioned during the parliamentary debates were the following: - the legislation of Latvia already provided sufficient protection for national minorities, - the term "national minority" was not defined in legislation, - ratification of this convention was not an indicator of the level of democracy and respect to human rights, as several European countries had not even signed the Convention, - it was exclusively up to the Government to decide when the ratification of the Convention could be initiated. To some extent, reluctance to ratify the Convention was aggravated by insufficient understanding of the nature of the Convention as a “document of principles”, which leaves a broad margin of interpretation to its state parties in respect of the choice of methods of implementation of the Convention’s principles. Thus, on the one hand, the ruling parties were vulnerable to misinterpretation of the Convention as if the latter would require Latvia to reduce the protection of the majority language, while, on the other hand, some minorities’ activists developed unreasonable expectations as if the ratification in itself would resolve all the minority problems in Latvia. The debate over ratification of the Convention played certain role in the Latvia’s EU accession process. Although ratification is not an official standard requirement for the candidate states, it was essential in evaluation of whether Latvia met the Copenhagen criteria with regard to protection of and respect for minority rights. While interpretation of these criteria in practice was rather controversial and not always consistent, the repeated refusal to ratify the Convention somewhat marred Latvia’s long-aspired entrance into the EU. EU Commission Annual Progress Report on Latvia of 2002 explicitly urged Latvia to ratify the Convention1. The recommendation was reiterated by the European Parliament in its monitoring report on candidate countries2. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe also recommended Latvia to ratify the Convention “as a matter of priority”, in particular, in its Resolution 1236 (2001) “Honouring of 1 http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/archives/pdf/key_documents/2002/lv_en.pdf (visited on 24 November 2007) 2 http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P5-TA-2004- 0180+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN (visited on 2 December 2007) 2 obligations and commitments by Latvia“3. The same recommendation was included into a number of documents issued by other international bodies. Inter alia, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities in his Statement of October 2004 (HCNM.GAL/4/04) reiterated his recommendation to Latvia to ratify the Convention that “would send a positive signal to the minority community”4. It should be mentioned that the state institutions had been reluctant to conduct preparatory work preceding the ratification and necessary for successful implementation of the Convention’s principles. There was also a lack of understanding within the society at large concerning necessary changes in Latvia’s legislation and their practical consequences should the principles of the Convention to be implemented. Importantly, such lack of understanding was also present within the state bodies which would be responsible for the implementation. Finally, Latvia ratified the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities on 6 June 2005 with three declarations. One of them determines the scope of application of the Framework Convention while the two other stipulate that Article 10 para.2 and Article 11 para.3 of the Framework Convention are binding insofar as they do not contradict the Constitution and other normative acts of the Republic of Latvia (see more detailed analysis of the impact of these declarations in Part II of this report). The Convention entered into force on 1 October 2005. In this report we tried to follow the outline adopted by Committee of Ministers for state reports. Part I of this report provides general information about Latvia and its minority situation. Part II of this report takes “article by article” approach to analyse whether Latvia’s legislation and its implementation correspond to the principles envisioned in the Convention. 2. Information on the status of international law in the domestic legal order Legal Article 89 of the Constitution5 provides that the State shall recognise and protect fundamental human rights in accordance with this Constitution, laws and international agreements binding upon Latvia. According to Section 13 of the Law “On International Treaties of the Republic of Latvia” of 19946, if provisions of the international treaty approved by the Saeima (Parliament) do not comply with provisions of the acts of legislation of the Republic of Latvia, provisions of the international agreement are to be applied. The Section 15 of the Administrative Procedure Law of 20017 stipulates that universal principles of international law and international agreements binding for Latvia are to be observed when issuing and applying administrative acts. Therefore provisions of international treaties binding to Latvia are to be applied in judicial and administrative procedure, they are directly enforceable before the judicial and administrative authorities and take precedence over national laws, except for the Constitution (Section 16 para. 2 of the Constitutional Court Law of 19968). Implementation 3http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=http%3A%2F%2Fassembly.coe.int%2FDocuments%2FAdoptedText%2Fta01%2F ERES1236.htm (visited on 24 November 2007) 4 http://www.osce.org/item/14795.html (visited on 24 November 2007) 5 http://www.saeima.lv/Likumdosana_eng/likumdosana_satversme.html in English (visited on 24 November 2007), http://www.likumi.lv/doc.php?id=57980&mode=DOC in Latvian (visited on 15 December 2007) 6 http://www.likumi.lv/doc.php?id=57840&mode=KDOC (visited on 25 November 2007) 7 http://www.likumi.lv/doc.php?mode=DOC&id=55567 (visited on 25 November 2007) 8 http://www.satv.tiesa.gov.lv/?lang=2&mid=9 in English (visited on 25 November 2007), http://www.likumi.lv/doc.php?id=63354&mode=KDOC in Latvian (visited on 15 December 2007) 3 In practice the courts of law frequently refer to provisions of international human rights treaties in their judgements, although sometimes provisions of treaties are interpreted improperly. However, the Supreme Court, administrative courts and the Constitutional Court try to improve this practice. Judges and state officials still have insufficient knowledge and understanding of human rights standards and their interpretation. The Latvian Judicial Training Centre9 is aware of the situation and holds seminars on the topic regularly. 3. Summary overview of the history. 3.1. Political history overview The Republic of Latvia has declared its independence on 18 November 1918. Following a war for independence, Latvia has been established as a parliamentary republic, where minorities had full citizenship rights as well as enjoyed considerable protection for their cultures and languages. In May 1934, however, the democratic order has been overthrown in a bloodless coup, establishing the authoritarian dictatorship of Karlis Ulmanis, who curtailed general democratic rights as well as minority rights. As a result of so-called Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, Latvia was annexed by the USSR in 1940. Latvia declared the restoration of its independence on 4 May 1990, and regained independence de-facto in August 1991 following an abortive coup d’etat in Moscow. The main peculiarity of the political framework in Latvia relevant to minority protection is connected with the problem of citizenship. In October 1991 The Supreme Council (the then parliament) adopted a Resolution “On the Renewal of the Rights of Citizens of the Republic of Latvia