High ranked Romanian government representative about
the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
As citizen of Romania I asked at the end of 2015 the prefect (the representative of the government) of Kovászna/Covasna county, as the person entitled to guarantee the rule of law in the county, to ensure that also the laws regarding the rights of the persons belonging to the national minorities are respected. He answered that in Kovászna/Covasna county these rights are fully respected, and even though I gave him examples that disprove that, he refused to do anything in that respect. So I filed a complain against him, asking the court to force him to do that, namely to verify the public institutions functioning in the county and to fine those which don not comply with the provisions of those laws.
In the complain I was referring also to law 282/2007, the one by which Romania ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
In his response, related to this topic the prefect affirmed the following:
“The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages states obligations for the signatories, namely the states, so the institution of the prefect cannot substitute itself in the place of the state by creating the legal framework necessary for fulfilling the assumed obligations. More exactly the lack of the application norms for the Charter ratified by the Romanian state makes it impossible to put in practice those obligations.”
He affirmed it although that law itself stipulates exactly the obligations of the authorities related to all minority languages used in Romania.
I consider that it is inadmissible for a representative of the government to state such things in an official document submitted to the court, aiming to defend his position of doing nothing in order to facilitate for the Szekler people living in Kovászna/Covasna county to make use of their rights. This is yet another example that the Romanian authorities use to affirm that they handle the problems of the national minorities in an exemplary way, but in reality they do exactly the opposite. The Romanian policy is to ratify human rights conventions and after that not to put them in practice, to look European but in fact to harass and discriminate the minorities.
The international community should be aware of this and should not tolerate it!
Árus Zsolt
president of the Szekler Council of Gyergyószék