President of Latvia Egils Levits has announced his opinion on amendments to the Law on Assistance to Ukrainian Civilians quickly adopted by the Saeima on 16 June 2022. President commented the purpose and significance of the law, drafting of changes and their adoption, as well as potential informational consequences for Latvia.
According to President of Latvia, Law on Assistance to Ukrainian Civilians was initially designed to ensure that Ukrainian citizens and their family members can quicker and more efficiently access support after leaving Ukraine or not being able to return to Ukraine because of Russian invasion.
The structure and effects of the Law on Assistance to Ukrainian Civilians, however, do not allow to provide Ukrainians support with other issues not related to direct support, President Levits indicates.
‘Saeima Public Affairs and Human Rights Committee has done excellent job handling extremely difficult legislative challenges and other tasks during this convocation, but this law unfortunately is not its best work,’ President of Latvia points out in his review of the hasty law.
Egils Levits also indicated that current provisions of the law on transition to uniform curriculum in minority schools is ambiguous languages curriculum transition. He also thinks that due to Russia’s war in Ukraine it would be unacceptable for Latvia to communicate the vital information to Ukrainians in Russian.
‘If legislators wanted this law to help establish Latvian as the only official language also spoken by Latvia’s ethnic minorities, it should not be regulated or included in a law that seeks to help distressed Ukrainian civilians in current circumstances. [..] It is not fair to hide provisions serving other means and purposes behind a law on assistance to regular Ukrainians,’ President Levits underlines.
Egils Levits also criticised Saeima for postponing this vital legal framework that is significant for Ukrainians seeking refuge in Latvia and Latvia’s information landscape to the end of spring session and adopting it in a rush. President of Latvia alluded to such risks as less original content and diversity of content in Latvia’s information landscape, lack of analysis of intellectual property implications and actual costs of creating content in minority languages.
Public Digital Media Council (PDMC) is responsible for application of the law, therefore President urges PDMC to ensure that ‘law is enforced in a manner that serves the purpose of the Law on Assistance to Ukrainian Civilians and gives Ukrainians access to news and analytical news programmes in their native language’.
Egils Levits also urged PDMC to apply the law ‘in a meaningful way and in accordance with core principles established in Satversme, as well as Latvia’s strategic national interests with regard to quality information space, while retaining, inter alia, the diversity of content available through digital media’.
According to Article 75 of the Constitution of the Republic of Latvia, Satversme, President of Latvia does not have the right to return laws to the parliament for reconsideration or initiate a referendum. The adopted law shall be proclaimed no later than the third day after the President has received it.
Full text of President Levits’ announcement is available on the webpage of the Presidential Chancery: https://www.president.lv/lv/media/92945/download