Estonian State will No Longer Translate the Laws to Russian Language
That's, to me, today's piece of news: Estonia stopped translating the laws into Russian. But why? Be careful, that can hurt since it is probably the argument of the year: the lack of money!
Estonia is facing a deep crisis and the Governement is definitely more and more
coward and showing every day its incompetency. What is that nonsense argument
who sounds like a statement from a 5 year old kid? Not so long ago, Ansip and
his colleagues did not want to freeze their salaries and now their are telling
us that nearly 400,000 citizens do not have access to the laws, rights and
obligations that regulate their daily life in their native language anymore
because there is not enough money! Find the mistake.
This shows once again that this smart government is more interested in maintaining their lifestyle and driving their brand new cars to the Parliament on the brand new road (this one was built very fast when a big highway is highly needed in the country between Tallinn and Tartu) than thinking about the real problems of the country and fighting for it. One will argue, "but why should they care? They have a bed, a nice house, a brand new car ready to destroy the roads of the Old Town... " Well, it's not like it's their job (ironic).
Translating the laws into Russian became non-existent after 2006, when the task was taken over by the Ministry of Justice. Before the task was done by Riigi Teataja Kirjastus. The ministry translates Estonian legal acts to English and foreign agreements from English to Estonian. The Ministry of Justice based the fact, that Russians can’t access the laws in their native language, on the lack of money.
This year starts very well and this decision will probably, once again, worsen the internal russian-estonian social conflict. At leats it is fuelling the comments on websites but some smell like old rotten nationalism.
Today, I am really sorry for Estonia.
Guillaume Fevrier
This shows once again that this smart government is more interested in maintaining their lifestyle and driving their brand new cars to the Parliament on the brand new road (this one was built very fast when a big highway is highly needed in the country between Tallinn and Tartu) than thinking about the real problems of the country and fighting for it. One will argue, "but why should they care? They have a bed, a nice house, a brand new car ready to destroy the roads of the Old Town... " Well, it's not like it's their job (ironic).
Translating the laws into Russian became non-existent after 2006, when the task was taken over by the Ministry of Justice. Before the task was done by Riigi Teataja Kirjastus. The ministry translates Estonian legal acts to English and foreign agreements from English to Estonian. The Ministry of Justice based the fact, that Russians can’t access the laws in their native language, on the lack of money.
This year starts very well and this decision will probably, once again, worsen the internal russian-estonian social conflict. At leats it is fuelling the comments on websites but some smell like old rotten nationalism.
Today, I am really sorry for Estonia.
Guillaume Fevrier
on 09-01-2009 By Giovanni Angioni - Estonia - Russia relations
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According to the Estonian Statistical Office, there were 343,000 ethnic Russian residents of Estonia in 2007. It is difficult to determine how many ethnic Russians are citizens, but 69 percent of the Estonian population is ethnic Estonian, and 26 percent is ethnic Russian, 6 percent others (Ukrainians are 2 percent, Belorusians and Finns are 1 percent each).
As of January 2, 2009, 84 percent of Estonian residents have Estonian citizenship. That means that of the 30 percent of the population that is not ethnic Estonian, half are Estonian citizens. 8.3 percent of residents have foreign citizenship (mostly Russian, Ukrainian, and Finnish), and 7.8 percent are stateless.
So, this cessation of Russian translation may impact the non-ethnic Estonian citizens and stateless persons, who are about 22 percent of the population, or 294,000 persons.
Of course, we haven't even veered into how many of those non-ethnic Estonian citizens are bilingual or fluent in the Estonian language, and therefore can function just as fine without having the laws translated into Russian (or any other minority tongue, ie. Ukrainian, Finnish).
But, for these reasons, I think your use of the number 400,000 is an exaggeration.
Giustino the statistical office give number. The statistical office in every country collect information on paper. Giustino you should live in Estonia and u will understand how is the real situation with the Russian Language. There are town city where people are speaking only russian. There are pub, club bar where u enter and u listen only russian. Exist Estonian citizenship that they learn estonian to get the citizenship but they are not speaking estonian. The life on the street is different from the life represent in the statistical data. You will see Giustino, during this year the riots will come again because of the brutal nationalism idea of the government. I m getting tired to have in the EU such a racist Government ( to be clear like the Italian Government that add a tax of 50€ to get the resident permitt!). Come to Estonia and u will understand what i'm writing.
Giustino, I dont think it is necessary to discuss the precision of the figures with such a long excel sheet
Even if I understand your point.
The thing is figures can be discussed as much as you want, 400 000 (foud on BBN by the way) or 300 000, it doesnt matter. Approximately 25% of the population will be affected by this decision which is not helping to solve the russian-estonian issue.
As far as I know Estonia always have problems with Russia. This is not the first conflict between these countries.
As an Estonian I can say that it isn't really a problem. The reaction to this piece of news was very cold to say the least. Mostly people were surprised that the laws were translated into Russian in the first place by the state.
The Estonian state, as part of the E-government project, doesn't give out laws on paper any more and does it only on-line (bear in mind that the country enjoys a full wireless internet access throughout its territory). The publishing of the laws on paperback are left upon different publishers who already provide them in Russian too. So it isn't really an issue and more of a propaganda thing to push the "Estonia oppressing local Russians" myth.
I slightly disagree on few points.
"the country enjoys a full wireless internet access throughout its territory": wrong. The most glamorous areas in Tallinn are covered, true. But how about deep Kopli and mid-Lasnamae?
And what if we leave the Capital: are Johvi, Kohtla Jarve, Isaku, Sillamae, Paldiski etc. fully covered?
Then: "I can say that it isn't really a problem" As an Estonian, you said. And as young and educated I allow myself to add.
Task of the government is to take care of people different from us, so to say old and not so well educated..so, bearing this in mind, would you still say that "this isn't really a problem?"
Well G .. :D
All those places you enlist have free wifi areas and of course the state sponsored KÕU (thunder) project with what you can access the internet wherever you are for a fee. So I would strongly argue that you can access the World Wide Web also from those places
You do have a point in saying what the government should do but .. gathering that you are a young and educated person yourself... you should fully understand that an average person couldn't care less about how or where the laws are published. The truth is that when they have a real need for them (in court for example) they hire a lawyer and that's what they should do. If they have an interest or the need to read the laws themselves they can buy them from the shops. And there is no actual need for the state to pay extra for those if the publishing houses are willing to publish them.
Also if you argue that the older generation don't have the means to buy computers, "wifi sticks" and so on
then they can go and access the internet in every local library. Furthermore, if they can't operate a computer at all, they can just go and pick up the laws from the same libraries on paperback (the same ones published by the private companies).
So again G, I really can't see a problem with it
je suis daccord!!
c clair et net les amis!
la vie change chaque seconde ouiiiii:)
parfois faut faire attention
et pourquoi ne pas refaire ca une fois encore
faut surtout respecter ses idees
seulement ceux qui vivent ca peuvent savoir combien c difficile
lavenir est prometteur dans ce domaine
une idee parmis autres
c pas si difficile que ca non?!!