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MOLDOVAN PARLIAMENT PASSES LAW ON LANGUAGES FUNCTIONING IN REPUBLIC

17 december, 2020

On Wednesday evening, the Moldovan Parliament approved the Law on the functioning of languages in the Republic of Moldova territory in a final reading by the unanimous vote of the parliamentary majority of the Party of Socialists and the Sor Party.

According to the law, in relations with state power organs, enterprises and organizations situated in the Republic of Moldova territory, the language of oral and written communication shall be the country’s official language and/or the Russian language as a language of inter-ethnic communication. According to the Law, the names of all goods produced and services rendered in the republic, all medicines sold, and the tablets and nameplates in state institutions and civil society organizations must be translated also into Russian.

The Law stipulates that officials shall bear personal responsibility for their refusal to issue in Russian a reply to an oral or written petition if the applicant requests this.

At the same time, the Law demands that the heads of state institutions must speak the country’s official language. Also, the Law stipulates that “the knowledge of the official language in Moldova is a moral duty of the representatives of ethnic minorities”, whereas the State must provide conditions for gratuitous studying of the state language, particularly in regions compactly populated by ethnic minorities.

The new Law in question is meant to replace “The Law on the Functioning of Languages in the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic”, adopted yet on August 31, 1989, but annulled in 2018 by the Constitutional Court, which recognized it to be obsolete.

Opposition representatives boycotted the Wednesday’s plenary meeting of the Parliament in protest against the plenary agenda approved by the parliamentary majority. The opposition MPs named the agenda ‘toxic’.

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