Will there be no bilingual inscriptions?

Last week Parliament’s Human Rights Committee approved a bill on national minorities filed by EAPL in the Sejm , but it removed the regulation of bilingual inscriptions.

After taking into account the conservative Valentinas Stundys’s amendments the Committee approved the bill. According to the revised version of the bill people who do not speak the state language or their knowledge of the state language is poor will be allowed to address the clerks in their native language in areas widely inhabited by national minorities. However, state and local institutions will have to ensure that all the documentation is carried out in the Lithuanian language.

The names in the non-state language will be allowed to appear only on the signboards with organizations’ and national minorities communities’ names. In addition, next to the name written in the minority language we should find an equivalent  written in the Lithuanian language.

Last week, the Parliament crossed off from the plan of Thursday meetings  the bills of National Minorities and the spelling of names and surnames. Gediminas Kirkilas assured that time that the Social Democrats still support the bills and it is possible that the Parliament will take up the bills as early as next Thursday.

Source: http://zw.lt/wilno-wilenszczyzna/nie-bedzie-dwujezycznych-napisow/

Tłumaczenie by Kasia Ratajek w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Kasia Ratajek within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.