December 2004

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POLAND: NEW “LAW ON NATIONAL AND ETHNIC MINORITIES AND ON THE REGIONAL LANGUAGE”

December 2004 – Poland’s lower chamber (the Sejm) passed on 4 November the “Law on National and Ethnic Minorities and the Regional Language” (the term “regional language” applying to Kashubian). However, it is not yet in force, as it must be also passed by the Senate. Only then, and once it is signed by the President and published in the Journal of Laws, will it become a universally binding law. In fact, the Senate may still introduce significant amendments to the law, which was passed with 247 votes in favour, 133 against and 6 abstentions. The text is for the moment only available in Polish.

As reported by the newspaper Schlesisches Wochenblatt, the final text does not include certain provisions granting wider linguistic rights to minorities. For instance, a proposal to amend the bill was turned down during the parliamentary debate; this proposal aimed at introducing the obligation for local councils of municipalities where minorities live to communicate with minority members in their mother tongue if they asked for it. Moreover, the final text introduced the use of a minority language in place and street signs only in those municipalities where a minority accounts for at least 50% of the population, while the bill proposed a much lower threshold of 8%.