The Constitutional Court (CC) partially accepted the challenge filed by Liberal MPs, who said that the obligation to use the Russian language and the translation of public documents and acts into this language go against the Constitution. The judgment was passed on June 4, IPN reports.

According to the Liberals, the status of the Russian language was first specified in the law on the functioning of the languages spoken on the territory of the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic of September 1989. The document provides that the Russian language, as a language of communication between the nations of the USSR, is used on the republic’s territory alongside the Romanian language as a langue of communication between nations, which ensures real national-Russian and Russian-national bilingualism.

“It is inexplicable why the law has been kept intact, with the same status and guarantees for the Russian language –  the official language of the former USSR – for over 26 years of the declaration of the independence of the Republic of Moldova (August 27, 1991) and for over 22 years of the adoption of its Constitution on July 29, 1994 (which took effect on August 27, 1994). The anachronism of such a situation is evident,” the Liberals said in their challenge.  
 
As a result of deliberations, the CC declared Article 4, paragraph 2 of the Constitutional Jurisdiction Code and Article 31, paragraph 2 of the Law of December 13, 1994 concerning the Constitutional Court unconstitutional. It also ascertained the desuetude of the law on the functioning of the languages spoken on the territory of the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic of September 1, 1989.

The Court held that the name of the law itself shows an outdated reality as the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic stopped to exist on May 23, 1991, when the name of the state was modified into the Republic of Moldova. It also ruled that the obligation to use the Russian language as a language of communication between the nations of the USSR is inappropriate given that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics fell apart on December 26, 1991.

The Court ascertained the useless character of the law on the functioning of the languages spoken on the territory of the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic. On the one hand, not its provisions produce effects, but the subsequent special legal provisions. On the other hand, the community in the Republic of Moldova lives in another, new state that is democratic and independent and where the momentary reasons of the given law are of no use. The CC noted that the effects of declaring the desuetude of a law equal its abrogation and the part of the challenge that refers to this law is thus inadmissible.

According to the Court, the official character of the Romanian language in the Republic of Moldova does not exclude the translation of the normative documents adopted or issued by some of the central authorities of the Republic of Moldova into other languages, the guaranteeing by the state of the right to education in Russian, the publication of normative documents, official communiques and other information of national importance in Russian and posting of names of public institutions in Russian. The law texts challenged from this viewpoint do not envision the publication of normative documents, conducting of the education process or posting of the names of public institutions exclusively in Russian. Priority is given to the Romanian language, while Russian is a subsequent option.

The Court’s judgement is definitive and cannot be challenged. It takes effect when it is published in the Official Gazette