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Ukraine 1St Report Public Corr Strasbourg, 7 July 2010 ECRML (2010) 6 EUROPEAN CHARTER FOR REGIONAL OR MINORITY LANGUAGES APPLICATION OF THE CHARTER IN UKRAINE Initial monitoring cycle A. Report of the Committee of Experts on the Charter B. Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on the application of the Charter by Ukraine The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages provides for a control mechanism to evaluate how the Charter is applied in a State Party with a view to, where necessary, making Recommendations for improvements in its legislation, policy and practices. The central element of this procedure is the Committee of Experts, established in accordance with Article 17 of the Charter. Its principal purpose is to report to the Committee of Ministers on its evaluation of compliance by a Party with its undertakings, to examine the real situation of the regional or minority languages in the State and, where appropriate, to encourage the Party to gradually reach a higher level of commitment. To facilitate this task, the Committee of Ministers adopted, in accordance with Article 15.1, an outline for the initial periodical report that a Party is required to submit to the Secretary General. The report should be made public by the State. This outline requires the State to give an account of the concrete application of the Charter, the general policy for the languages protected under its Part II and in more precise terms all measures that have been taken in application of the provisions chosen for each language protected under Part III of the Charter. The Committee’s first task is therefore to examine the information contained in the initial periodical report for all the relevant regional or minority languages on the territory of the State concerned. The Committee’s role is to evaluate the existing legal acts, regulations and real practice applied in each State for its regional or minority languages. It has established its working methods accordingly. The Committee gathers information from the respective authorities and from independent sources within the State, so as to attempt to obtain a just and fair overview of the real language situation. After a preliminary examination of an initial periodical report, the Committee submits, if necessary, a number of questions to each Party to procure supplementary information from the authorities on matters it considers insufficiently developed in the report itself. This written procedure is usually followed up by an “on-the-spot visit” of a delegation of the Committee to the respective State. During this visit the delegation meets bodies and associations whose work is closely related to the use of the relevant languages, and consults the authorities on matters that have been brought to its attention. This information-gathering process is designed to enable the Committee to better evaluate the application of the Charter in the State concerned. Having concluded this process, the Committee of Experts adopts its own report. This report is submitted to the Committee of Ministers together with suggestions for recommendations that the latter could decide to address to one or more Parties as may be required. 2 CONTENTS A. Report of the Committee of Experts on the application of the Charter by Ukraine............................................................................................................................. 4 Chapter 1 - Background information ...................................................................................................4 1.1. Ratification of the Charter by Ukraine..................................................................................4 1.2. Work of the Committee of Experts.......................................................................................4 1.3. Presentation of the regional or minority language situation in Ukraine ...............................5 1.4. Particular issues arising from the evaluation of the application of the Charter in Ukraine...............................................................................................................................10 Chapter 2 - The Committee’s evaluation in respect of Part II and Part III of the Charter .................15 2.1. The evaluation in respect of Part II of the Charter.............................................................15 2.2. The evaluation in respect of Part III of the Charter............................................................25 Chapter 3 - Findings..........................................................................................................................94 Appendix I: Instrument of Acceptance ..............................................................................................98 Appendix II: Comments by the Ukrainian authorities ........................................................................99 B. Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on the application of the Charter by Ukraine.................................................................. 108 3 A. Report of the Committee of Experts on the application of the Charter by Ukraine adopted by the Committee of Experts on 27 November 2008 and presented to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in accordance with Article 16 of the Charter Chapter 1 - Background information 1.1 Ratification of the Charter by Ukraine 1. Ukraine signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (hereafter referred to as the Charter) on 2 May 1996. The Parliament of Ukraine (Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine) ratified the treaty on 15 May 2003. The ratification instrument was deposited with the Secretary General of the Council of Europe on 19 September 2005 and this treaty entered into force in respect of Ukraine on 1 January 2006. 2. The Ukrainian authorities published the Charter on 25 December 2006 in the Official Bulletin of Ukraine (issue #50) and it was also published on the official free site of Verkhovna Rada 1 from the date of its enactment. However, both the Ukrainian authorities and representatives of speakers made reference to translation problems in the Ukrainian version of the Charter during the on-the-spot visit. This reflects, according to the information gathered, a misunderstanding of the Charter. The Ukrainian authorites are therefore invited to provide a new translation of the Charter into Ukrainian. 3. The Ukrainian authorities also informed the Committee of Experts that the Law of Ukraine on the ratification of the Charter will be revised 2. The Committee of Experts has received a draft law on ratification but it has not yet been adopted. The Committee of Experts refers to its comments on the instrument of ratification below (see paragraphs 58-66 below). 4. Pursuant to Article 15.1 of the Charter, the initial periodical report on the application of the Charter in Ukraine was presented to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe on 1st August 2007. 5. In accordance with the requirement in Article 15.2 of the Charter, the initial periodical report was made public by the Ministry of Justice on 20 April 2007 and a roundtable meeting was organised on 30 May 2007 with representatives of the speakers. During the on-the-spot visit however, the Committee of Experts was informed that some minorities, in particular the Crimean Tatars, were neither made aware of the report nor consulted. Furthermore, considering the linguistic landscape in Ukraine, and the language skills of a great proportion of speakers of regional or minority languages, the Committee of Experts considers that the report could be translated into Russian and distributed to speakers of regional or minority languages also in this language. 1.2 Work of the Committee of Experts 6. After the Committee of Experts had made its preliminary examination of the report, a questionnaire was drawn up and addressed to the Ukrainian authorities. The Committee organised its on-the-spot visit to Ukraine in May 2008. It met with authorities responsible for and/or concerned with the implementation of the Charter as well as representatives of the speakers of Belorussian, Bulgarian, Gagauz, Greek, Hebrew and Yiddish, Crimean Tatar, Moldovan, German, Polish, Russian, Romanian, Slovak and Hungarian, as well as with speakers of Romani, Karaim and Krimshak. 7. The Committee of Experts also received an extensive number of comments from bodies and associations legally established in Ukraine, submitted pursuant to Article 16 paragraph 2 of the Charter. This information was very helpful in the course of evaluating the application of the Charter and the Committee of Experts would like to express its appreciation to these organisations for their valuable contribution to and participation in the monitoring process. 1 www.rada.gov.ua 2 See Law of Ukraine #802-IV 4 8. This report is based on the political and legal situation at the time when the Ukrainian authorities drafted the initial periodical report on the implementation of the Charter in Ukraine, and on the information obtained by the Committee of Experts from the on-the-spot-visit and the subsequent comments received. 9. The report contains detailed observations that the Ukrainian authorities are encouraged to take into account in order to develop their policy on regional or minority languages. The Committee of Experts has, on the basis of its detailed observations, also established a list of proposals for recommendations to be addressed to Ukraine by the Committee of Ministers, as provided for by Article 16.4 of the Charter.
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