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Three months after the European Court of Human Rights pronounced the judgment which recognized the violation of the right to education in the Transnistrian region of Moldova (Catan and Others v. Moldova and Russia case), the Russian authorities have not pay the compensation they were obligated to and failed to take any step to enforce required general and individual provisions.

To enforce the ECtHR judgment with respect to paying the established compensations, representatives of the plaintiffs filed claims to the Russian government agent to the ECtHR, as well as the Russian Finance Ministry and State Treasury. Insofar, none of addressees gave any response to the claim.

Also, in our opinion, the authorities concerned (Moldova and Russia) ignored their obligations under the European Convention and ECtHR judgment of 19 October 2012, and made no visible efforts to solve the problems related to:

1. Excluding illegal and abusive provisions in the local regulations that restrict the use of the Latin alphabet for the functioning of Romanian (Moldovan) language in the Eastern region of Moldova (Article 6 of the regional “Law on languages”, Art. 12th of the region’s “Constitution”, Art. 200/3 “Code of administrative violations” of the region, Decree of 18 August 1994 on the prohibition of the use of Latin script in schools);

2. Canceling provisions of the so-called local authorities of the cities of Ribnita, Bender and Grigoriopol on evacuating the Latin script Lyceums from the buildings they previously held;

3. Restitution of buildings used before the forced evacuation by the “Evrica” Lyceum in Ribnita on Gagarin St, by “Alexandru cel Bun” Lyceum on Kosmodemianskaia St. in Bender, and returning the building used by the “Stefan cel Mare” Lyceum from Grigoriopol until 2002;

4. Canceling the requirement to register educational institutions operating based on the national curriculum with the local administration in Tiraspol;

5. Canceling any prohibition regarding the provision of books, manuals or other goods and materials used in the educational process in Latin script schools.

6. Prohibition of discrimination and intimidation campaigns that were admitted and sometimes organized by local separatist administrations, especially acts of vandalism and hooliganism against those who wish to study in these schools.

Contrary to populist statements of representatives of the separatist regime in the recent years, the situation of Romanian-language schools remains difficult. According to school principals, all conditions are in place to disrupt teaching. Retention of school buses of the “Stefan cel Mare” Lyceum from Grigoriopol, that takes students to a school in Doroţcaia or persecution of a student of the “Lucian Blaga” Lyceum in Tiraspol shows that the Tiraspol regime is intended to continue to violate the right to education in the region.

We therefore demand the Moldovan legal authorities, the government of Ukraine, which is a mediator in the Transnistrian conflict and currently holds thet chair of the OSCE, the observer parties: United States, European Union and OSCE, and especially Russia, to take consistent and effective efforts to ensure non-discriminatory conditions for all students and parents in the Transnistrian region, as envisaged by the respective ECtHR judgment of 19 October 2012.

Promo-LEX will notify the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe of the fact that the Russian Federation ignores obligations assumed by ratifying the European Convention for Human Rights.

For more details, please contact: Iulia Munteanu, Press Officer
Tel: (22) 450024, GSM: 069072579, email: [email protected]