On June 4, 2018 the Constitutional Court (CC) examined the constitutionality of a number of legal provisions concerning the functioning of the Russian language on Moldova’s territory and the banning of the control of the constitutionality of laws adopted before the coming into force of the Constitution. The given decision caused heated debates, in particular in the program “Key Issue” on NTV Moldova channel. It is useless discussing the opportunity of the adoption of the given decision as it is definitive and cannot be challenged and takes effect when it is adopted. But we can speak about its effects and the quality of the CC’s arguments.
First of all, the examination of the admissibility of the control of the constitutionality of the law on the functioning of spoken languages was ineffective, but useful as the Constitution itself refers directly to the given law, pointing to the compliance of this law with the supreme law. The final and transitory provisions of the Constitution fully devote Article VII to the given law and the measures to protect this:
(1) The law of September 1, 1989 concerning the functioning of languages spoken on the territory of the Republic of Moldova remains in force as long as it does not run counter to the present Constitution.
(2) The aforementioned law can be modified within seven years of the coming into force of the present Constitution, by the vote of at least two thirds of MPs.
So, until 2001 this law had the status of a constitutional law to a particular extent. The remaining in force as long as it does not run counter to the Constitution implies its compliance with the provisions of the supreme law and its dependence on an eventual modification of Article 13 “Official language, functioning of the other languages”. The given article hasn’t been modified since the Constitution was adopted in 1994 to provide reasons for the reexamination of the constitutionality of this law.
These are the circumstances in which the CC declared the law on the functioning of languages as fallen into desuetude and the main argument was that in the period of transition the law produced its effects as if through rhizomes – use of its provisions to adopt a series of laws that regulate in detail different aspects of the functioning of languages. The argument is solid and would be sufficient if the regulations covered all the dimensions and aspects. Another solid argument refers to the international documents that protect the rights of national minorities to which the Republic of Moldova is a party, to the European practice developed by the ECHR. Thus, there should not be concerns about the realization of the given rights when the law on language functioning fell into desuetude.
In the light of the aforementioned, the CC’s argument that the Law on the functioning of the languages spoken on the territory of the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic fell into desuetude for the reason that the Moldovan SSR became the Republic of Moldova on May 23, 1991 already is more than strange. The text of the Constitution itself, referring to the given law, names it: Law on the functioning of the languages spoken on the territory of the Republic of Moldova. So, the name should not have any connection with the caducity of the given law. The text of the Constitution itself ensures the continuation of the application of the given law and the succession of the subject that changed its name.
After the CC passed its judgment, at practical level the functioning of the spoken languages should remain unchanged. The main problem that seems to bother our Russian speaking citizens resides in the keeping of the obligation to translate the official documents into the Russian language. But this problem will anyway have to be precisely regulated. Article 13(4) of the Constitution expressly provides: the functioning method of the languages spoken on the territory of the Republic of Moldova is agreed by organic law. Therefore, the CC judgement should have been accompanied by a request to Parliament. This would have contributed somehow to the acceleration of the adoption of a new law, narrowing the space for propagandistic confrontations.
In conclusion, we can assert that the CC judgement prefigures political confrontations and public debates on the eventual regulations from the future Law on the functioning of the languages spoken on the territory of the Republic of Moldova, in the post-transition period already. It should be noted that the law that was declared ‘fallen into desuetude’ was dear to the generation of the Great National Assemblies as it was the first and the most important one that proclaimed and enacted the really existing Moldovan-Romanian linguistic identity. From that moment, there were all reasons to make sure that the Romanian language was really at home, with all the papers in order.
