Separate law needed for Russian, other minority languages – president's rep in Constitutional Court

07.07.2020 17:30

Ukrinform

The Verkhovna Rada must pass a separate law regulating the status of Russian and other minority languages, according to Fedir Venislavsky, the Ukrainian president's representative in the Constitutional Court.

He said this during an oral hearing in the case of the constitutionality of the "language law," according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

According to him, the law on ensuring the functioning of Ukrainian as the state language concerns the legal regulation of the use of exclusively Ukrainian.

"We are talking exclusively about the Ukrainian language. The subject of the legal regulation of this law is not the status of other languages," Venislavsky said.

He also added that the president's position on the Ukrainian language as the only state language remains unchanged.

On July 7, the Grand Chamber of the Constitutional Court began the consideration of the case on the constitutionality of the law on ensuring the functioning of Ukrainian as the state language.

The Verkhovna Rada passed the law on April 25, 2019, and it entered into force on July 16, 2019.

However, on June 21, 2019, the Constitutional Court received a petition from 51 MPs asking the court to check the constitutionality of the law on ensuring the functioning of Ukrainian as the state language.