Ukraine's new minority law is discriminatory

The law on minorities, as amended recently by the Ukrainian parliament, still fails to guarantee the constitutional rights of ethnic minorities in Ukraine and restore former minority rights, the Presidency of the Hungarian Cultural Association of Transcarpathia (KMKSZ) said in its statement issued on Tuesday.

1971952820 Fotó: Zsolt Biczo

KMKSZ "regrets that the constructive proposals put forward by Hungarian organizations were not taken into account during the amendment of Ukraine's Minority Law".

The law, adopted in its second reading, deleted an important criterion for defining national minorities, namely the fact that their representatives traditionally live on the territory of Ukraine, making the concept of national minority meaningless.

"This results in the exclusion of any collective rights to minorities," the statement by KMKSZ points out.

According to a statement forwarded by the KMKSZ Presidency to Hungary's state news agency (MTI), "the fact that several clauses of the law are discriminatory or merely declarative may give rise to arbitrary interpretation".

The newly adopted amendment still fails to safeguard that minorities can exercise their rights guaranteed by the Constitution and international documents, and it does not restore the former minority rights, the statement said. 

Ukraine's new Law on National Minorities was adopted by parliament in December 2022. Following criticism regarding several passages of the law by the Venice Commission in June this year, an amendment to the law was submitted to the national assembly on August 13.

The adoption of the Minority Law is a key condition for the start of Ukraine's EU accession negotiations.

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