The European Court of Human Rights this June is to examine the situation and to call on the Russian Federation to implement the Court’s decision condemning it for violating the right to education in the Moldovan-administered Latin-script schools in Transnistria. Lawyer of Promo-LEX Association Alexandru Postica has told IPN that penalties will be imposed on Russia because it didn’t pay the damages awarded to plaintiffs.

On October 19, 2012, Russia was found guilty and was to pay by €6,000 to the 170 plaintiffs and €50,000 court costs within three months. But it hasn’t yet fulfilled its obligations.

The ECHR convicted Russia in the case of the Moldovan-administered Latin-script schools in Transnistria eight years after the application was filed. The plaintiffs complained that the secessionist Transnistrian administration banned using the Latin script for the Romanian language in all the spheres of public life and imposed the Cyrillic script. The plaintiffs asked that their institutions should remain within the administration of the constitutional authorities so that they could teach Romanian based on the Latin script. Consequently, they were subject to intimidation, persecution, detention and prosecution, with the parents and students being harassed and threatened.