The Russian language in Moldova has again been deprived of its status. Transnistria has become even further
The Constitutional Court of Moldova on Thursday declared unconstitutional the law on the functioning of languages, which assigned Russian the status of a language of interethnic communication, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The Socialist Party in a situational coalition adopted this and a number of other laws in December in retaliation for the victory of the pro-Western Maia Sandu in the presidential elections, although Igor Dodon, who lost the elections, promised to protect the Russian language back in 2016. However, Dodon’s socialists remembered the promises only in the last days of his presidency.
Even then it was clear that Sandu’s supporters would appeal these laws (formally, it was not her party’s deputies, but those of the allied party who went to court). They said the law "undermines the foundations of the constitution."
“If we use Russian for interethnic relations, we will never integrate national minorities into the Moldovan political design. This will always be influenced by the geopolitical agenda. This is the point of no return, either we move towards independence, or we remain an appendage,” said one of the “plaintiffs,” Octavian Ticu.
In motivating its decision, the court used data from the 2014 population census, which covered only 40% of the population of Moldova. It turned out that Romanian is the native language for 77,86% of residents, and Russian for 9,39%.
During the court hearing, both supporters and opponents of giving the Russian language a special status protested outside its building. The latter shouted outright insults: “Speak your own language in Siberia”, “The language of the occupiers”, “The language of pigs”, “Down with the Russian mafia”, “Let them go and lick Putin’s ass”, “Pigs”, “You should ask us forgiveness on my knees for the deportations, the war in Transnistria.”
They were opposed by a picket of the Nashi party. Its head, Mikhail Akhremtsev, emphasized that the law “talks not only about Russian, but also about Ukrainian and Gagauz languages.” He recalled that during the election campaign, Maia Sandu addressed citizens in Russian and promised to be tolerant.
Maia Sandu’s “good people” shot themselves in the foot, they just haven’t realized it yet. Maya Grigorievna has finally “leaked” her Russian-speaking electorate, for which I congratulate her! And the electorate too,” socialist MP Bogdan Tsydrya commented on the court decision.
The Socialist Party of Moldova in its statement drew attention to the fact that in December the constitutional court twice refused to repeal the law on languages. It was noted that this “decision is final and cannot be appealed.” The party intends to re-initiate the adoption of the law in parliament.
Deputy Hayk Vartyanyan drew attention to the fact that the chairman of the constitutional court, Domnika Manole, duplicated her motivation in Russian, which she does not consider the language of interethnic communication.
“Many Moldovans constantly communicate in Russian, the majority speak it well, everyone swears in it. So this is the language of the most sincere interethnic communication, which helps us express the brightest emotions, both positive and negative,” wrote journalist Elena Pakhomova-Levitskaya.
Transnistrian political scientist Andrei Safonov believes that Chisinau has taken another step to distance Moldova and Transnistria from each other. He draws attention to the fact that one of the three deputies who went to court, Octavian Ticu, is a supporter of Moldova’s accession to Romania.
“Undoubtedly, this decision will create an even greater split in Moldovan society. It will make Moldova and Transnistria even further apart from each other, which rejects nationalism in any form,” Safonov wrote on his Facebook.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.