Strasbourg, 9 December 2009 ECRML (2009) 7 EUROPEAN CHARTER FOR REGIONAL OR MINORITY LANGUAGES APPLICATION OF THE CHARTER IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC 1st 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 the Czech Republic 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 improving its legislation, policy and practices. The central element of this procedure is the Committee of Experts, set up under 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 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 subsequent periodical reports 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 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 of Experts‘ first task is therefore to examine the information contained in the periodical report for all the relevant regional or minority languages on the territory of the State concerned. The Committee of Experts‘ 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 of Experts gathers information from the respective authorities and from independent sources within the State, so as to attempt to obtain a fair and just overview of the real language situation. After a preliminary examination of an initial periodical report, the Committee of Experts submits, if necessary, a number of questions to each Party to obtain 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“ by a delegation of the Committee of Experts to the State in question. 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 of Experts to evaluate more effectively 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 may 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 in the Czech Republic..............................................................................................................................4 Chapter 1 Background information and preliminary issues ...........................................4 1.1. The Charter‘s ratification by the Czech Republic ...............................................................4 1.2. The work of the Committee of Experts...............................................................................4 1.3. Presentation of the regional or minority language situation in the Czech Republic ............5 1.4. General legal framework....................................................................................................7 1.5. General issues arising from the evaluation of the report....................................................7 Chapter 2 The Committee of Experts‘ evaluation of the application of the Charter ......9 2.1. Preliminary issue ...............................................................................................................9 2.2. Evaluation in respect of Part II of the Charter ....................................................................9 2.3. Evaluation in respect of Part III of the Charter .................................................................20 2.3.1. Polish ...............................................................................................................20 2.3.2. Slovak...............................................................................................................33 Chapter 3 Findings of the Committee of Experts in the first monitoring round ..........43 Appendix 1: Instrument of ratification:.............................................................................................45 Appendix II: Comments by the Czech authorities ...........................................................................46 B. Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on the application of the Charter by the Czech Republic ........................................................55 3 A. Report of the Committee of Experts on the application of the Charter in the Czech Republic adopted by the Committee of Experts on 23 April 2009 and presented to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in accordance with Article 16 of the Charter Chapter 1 Background information and preliminary issues 1.1. The Charter‘s ratification by the Czech Republic 1. The Czech Republic signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (hereafter referred to as —the Charter“) on 9 November 2000 and ratified it on 15 November 2006. The Charter entered into force with regard to the Czech Republic on 1 March 2007. 2. The instrument of ratification is set out in Appendix I to this report. Therein, the Czech authorities declared that the Charter applied to the Slovak, Polish, German and Romani languages. 3. In accordance with Article 15 paragraph 1 of the Charter, the initial periodical report on the application of the Charter in the Czech Republic was presented on 30 April 2008. The report was drafted by the Secretariat of the Government Council for National Minorities, and included information provided by several ministries, regional and local authorities and national minority associations. 4. The text of the Charter was published in the official Collection of International Treaties and on the website of the Government Council for National Minorities, as was the initial periodical report. The Secretariat of the Government Council distributed an information brochure on the Charter ( Charta œ co bychom mli vdt?, The Charter œ What Should We Know?) to the regions and municipalities. However, during the on-the-spot visit, several representatives of the regional or minority language-speakers as well as the authorities expressed the view that the Charter may not have been distributed widely enough and that many municipalities were not sufficiently aware of the Charter. 1.2. The work of the Committee of Experts 5. After the Committee of Experts‘ preliminary examination of the report, a questionnaire was drawn up and addressed to the Czech authorities. A delegation of the Committee of Experts made an on-the-spot visit to the Czech Republic in December 2008. Meetings were held in Ostrava and Prague with representatives of the speakers of the Slovak, Polish, German and Romani languages, including non-governmental organisations, journalists and educationalists. It also met representatives of committees for national minorities, local, regional and central authorities. 6. The Committee of Experts received some comments and additional information from representatives of the speakers. This information has been helpful in the evaluation of the application of the Charter and the Committee of Experts would like to thank all of them for their active input and participation in the monitoring process. 7. In accordance with Article 16 paragraph 4 of the Charter, the Committee of Experts has established a list of general proposals for the preparation of recommendations that the Committee of Ministers may wish to address to the Czech Republic. Furthermore, in the body of the report, where necessary, it has made more detailed observations, which it encourages the Czech authorities to take into consideration when developing their regional or minority language policy. 8. This report is based on the political and legal situation prevailing when the Charter entered into force in the Czech Republic (1 March 2007), on the information presented by the Government of the Czech Republic in its initial periodical report to the Council of Europe (30 April 2008), on additional information provided by the Government at a later stage through the answers to a questionnaire compiled by the Committee of Experts, and on information obtained by the Committee of Experts during the on-the-spot visit, as stated above. The Committee of Experts adopted the present report on 23 April 2009. 4 1.3. Presentation of the regional or minority language situation in the Czech Republic 9. The number of speakers of the regional or minority languages spoken in the Czech Republic is based on those who declared themselves as