After the Constitutional Court declared Law No. 234 of December 16, 2020 on the functioning of languages spoken on the territory of the Republic of Moldova unconstitutional, dissatisfaction could appear in society, fueled by particular political parties with the aim of consolidating their pool of voters, expert Igor Boțan stated in IPN’s public debate “Reasons, components and consequences of restart of linguistic conflict”.
“I do not expect dissatisfaction and protests similar to those mounted in 1990 and later as then the Republic of Moldova was part of the Soviet Union that was falling apart. We all remember that the central authorities were interested in using the movements of the ethnic groups in the process of dissolving the Soviet Union so as to stop this process. It is not the case now,” he stated.
According to Igor Boțan, during the past 30 years, the subject of spoken languages has always been sensitive and is now brought back into focus by the Party of Socialists, in the context of the snap parliamentary elections. The Socialists now behave as the defenders of the Russian language and of the national minorities as if their ‘sins’ were forgotten and there are now no other problems related to them.
The expert noted a law to condemn any hate speech should be adopted in Moldova so as to solve the problem of discrimination of Moldovans according to different criteria, including the linguistic one. This would be a civilized approach that would help advance in uniting society.
Igor Boțan said the fact that Article 13 of the Constitution provides that a law on languages should exist to regulate this issue is a solid legal argument. Everything depends on the content of such a law. The CC said it clearly that if there is an official language, this language also fulfills the function of language of communication between everyone. Or, if there is an official language and there is also a language of interethnic communication, the language of interethnic communication comes above the official language by status. In 2001, there was adopted the law on the rights of persons who belong to national minorities and the legal status of their organizations and this law provides responses to all the questions that can exist in defense of the minorities. The CC’s arguments were very pertinent and they referred also to the census results and the regulations.
The public debate “Reasons, components and consequences of restart of linguistic conflict” is the 169th installment of the series “Developing political culture through public debates” that is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
