Window on Eurasia: Some Constitutions of Non-Russian Republics in National Languages aren’t Legally Authoritative

Paul Goble

 

            Staunton, November 4 – The Russian government has adopted various strategies and tactics direct and indirect to signal that non-Russians who want to protect their national cultures and speak their national languages are second class citizens in the Russian Federation of Vladimir Putin today.

 

            But one of the most insidious and largely unnoticed  is that the texts of at least some non-Russian constitutions are authoritative only in the Russian language has now sparked demands by activists in the Chuvash Republic of the Middle Volga to make the Chuvash and Russian texts equally authoritative and to rewrite the constitution of their republic in the process.

 

            The Ireklekh National Cultural Rebirth Society of Chuvash has appealed to the authorities to adopt a new constitution and to ensure that the Chuvash and the Russian versions of the republic’s basic law will be equally authoritative, something they say is necessary to guarantee “the equality of peoples and inter-ethnic peace” (irekle.org/news/i1963.html).

 

            “In states built on democratic principles and observing the rights of indigenous peoples,” the appeal says, “working documents and laws are adopted” and thus equally authoritative “in all state languages.” In Chuvashia, that means the versions in both Chuvash and Russian should be authoritative.

 

            But “unfortunately,” when the new Constitution of the republic was adopted in November 2000 to bring it into accord with the basic law of the Russian Federation, only the Russian version was recognized as having “legal force.”  A Chuvash translation was published, but officials say it has no legal force and thus cannot be cited as such.

 

            That is an obvious violation of the rights of the Chuvash people, the Ireklekh activists say, and “in the existing situation, the Constitution is not capable of defending the rights of the Chuvash language population of the republic.” Consequently, the republic needs a new constitution and one where the versions in the two languages are equally authoritative.

 

            If the leaders of the republic refuse to take this step, Dmitry Stepanov, the head of Ireklekh, says, he and his movement will appeal to the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation. And given that they would likely lose there, the next step would be an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

 

            Stepanov said that no other course was possible because “people who prefer to use the Chuvash language cannot use [the existing constitution as translated into Chuvash] as a legal document because it fact it isn’t one.”