Recommendations on the Protection of National Minorities (The End)

According to the act of 2005, Georgia ratified the Framework Convention for the protection of National Minorities. To implement mentioned convention in reality, the National Minority Commission of Public Defender’s office prepared recommendations.

As the Public Defender Sozar Subari declares the implementation of the requirements of the convention needs quite serious work. According to him, these recommendations are directed to the equality of rights.

Sozar Subari: “It is clear that there are a lot of problems. Though, there are basically two kinds of problems – first, integration for those minorities who live in the regions and second – preserve of own culture and language for those ethnic minorities who live among Georgian society. There is the view of minorities how there rights must be protected.”

There are several concrete events which must be hold to solve this problem.

Problem 1: Frequent cases of inadequate translation of legal documents during investigative and court proceedings involving minority representatives.

Recommendation to the Georgian Government: To develop a separate training program for court and investigation translators. Translators must be specialized in minority languages.

Problem 2: Inadequate government support to the preservation, maintenance and development of the languages, culture and identity of national minorities.

Ministry of Culture, Monuments and Protection and Sports is recommended to implement a respective state program for the preservation and development of the traditions and culture heritage of the national minorities. 

Recommendation to the Georgian Government: To establish a state foundation for civil integration to fund grant programs promoting civil integration and protection of national minorities. It is farther recommended to allocate adequate funds from the state budget to ensure effective functioning of the mentioned foundation

Problem 3: There is no effective media policy for informing of the representatives of national minorities.

Problem 4: Minorities, especially in the regions of their compact settlements, have inadequate access to information in understandable language.

Recommendation to the Georgian Government: To allocate sufficient resources for the provision of access for minority regions to the radio and TV programs, broadcasted by Georgian companies, properly translated/interpreted into languages understandable for minorities.

Problem 5: Frequent cases of displayed xenophobic attitudes and ethnic intolerance in some of the Georgian media outlets.   

Recommendation to the Georgian Government: To allocate necessary sources for competitions, trainings and seminars for journalists on minority issues reporting and cultural diversity.

Problem 6: Minority languages are widely used for communication between administrative authorities and minority population in compact minority settlements. Although, the existing practice corresponds to the real need there are no regulations to legalize the existing practices and ensure their consistency with the national legislation and Framework Convention of National Minority.

Recommendation for the Georgian Parliament: To consider adoption of respective amendments to the current national legislation ensuring the possibility for persons belonging to national minorities to use (along with the Georgian language) languages understandable for those persons in their relations with the administrative authorities.

Problem 7: Despite the ongoing state program teaching the state language to national minorities, significant part of national minorities have inadequate or no Georgian language skills, especially in the regions of their compact settlement.

Recommendation to the Georgian Government: To increase support to the state language teaching programs in the regions compactly populated by national minorities.

Problem 8: Insufficient knowledge of the Georgian language among national minorities living the Georgia limits their access to higher education.

Problem 9: The deficiency of inter-cultural exchange between ethnic groups of Georgia. Deficiency of programs familiarizing Georgian population with culture, language, history and traditions of the ethnic groups residing in Georgia.

Problem 10: Certain part of ethnic minorities in Georgia lacks the opportunity to study their languages in public schools.

The list of the problems and recommendations is too long. As Arnold Stephanian, the chief of the joint civil movement “Multinational Georgia” declares, the government does not like to share recommendations. Though, the ratification with the framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities gives hope, that some of those problems will be solved.

Eka Gulua