Constitutional Court declares unconstitutional language law of Kivalov-Kolesnichenko

"The Constitutional Court, at a meeting on February 28, declared unconstitutional the so-called language law of 'Kivalov-Kolesnichenko,'" he said.

At the same time, a report posted on the website of the Constitutional Court notes that on February 28, at a plenary meeting of the Grand Chamber of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, the Constitutional Court adopted decision No. 2-r/2018 in the case on a constitutional motion from 57 MPs regarding compliance with the Constitution of Ukraine (constitutionality) of the law on Ukraine on the state language policy.

As reported, the law on the principles of the state language policy, which was submitted by MPs Vadym Kolesnichenko and Serhiy Kivalov, was approved, signed and came into force in 2012. In February 2014, the Verkhovna Rada abolished the law on regional languages, but after that then Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov refused to sign this decision.

So the law is still valid. The law provides for the possibility of official bilingualism in regions where the number of national minorities exceeds 10%.

The approval of this law in 2012 resulted in rallies and protests. After the entry into force of the law, a number of regional and local councils recognized Russian as a regional language. In addition, Hungarian, Moldovan and Romanian were recognized as regional languages in the western regions.

Fifty-seven deputies demanded in 2014 that the Constitutional Court declare unconstitutional the law of Kivalov-Kolesnichenko.

In December 2017, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine moved to the closed part of a plenary meeting for further discussion and adoption of the decision on the constitutional motion.

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