| Melentie Pandilovski on Wed, 21 Mar 2001 12:59:51 +0100 |
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| [syndicate] ETHNIC MINORITIES |
POSITION OF ETHNIC MINORITIES IN MACEDONIAN CONSTITUTION The Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia, guarantees all citizens a full equality in their rights, regardless of ethnic background. The Constitution, which has a civic concept, by special provisions pertaining to minorities, provides an effective equality, based on the protection of their ethnic, cultural and religious identity. For the units of local government, with a considerable number of citizens who belong to ethnic minorities, the Constitution provides guarantees by which the language and the alphabet of the minorities are in official use in addition to the Macedonian language. Those rights are further regulated in the Law for Local Self-Government, which was prepared in accordance with the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. The Constitution of Republic of Macedonia also guarantees free and public expression of religious beliefs. All religious communities are equal before the law. The ethic minorities have a right to foster and express their ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural identity. The Constitution guarantees the ethnic minorities rights to establish their own cultural and art institutions. The ethnic minorities have a right to education in their language in the state primary and secondary schools as well as in the state faculties for teachers or artists for the needs of those minority institutions. This education is entirely free. The Law on Higher Education provides a possibility to establish a private university in any language. Besides that, there are numerous affirmative actions conducted in order to increase the participation of the Albanian students in all levels. The Law on Identity Cards provides that the names of the citizens belonging to ethnic minorities are written in their language and alphabet as well. The Criminal procedure Act and the Civil Procedure Act guarantee the participants in the proceedings the right to use their language, and provide free services for an interpreter. The Constitution obliges the Parliament to establish a Council for Inter-ethnic relations with obligatory multiethnic composition. The Council makes decisions with regards to initiatives and proposals in the sphere of inter ethnic relations. In the first multiparty parliamentary elections in 1990, the number of the Albanians among the elected members of Parliament was 19% ; in the Parliament elected in 1994 - 16% and in the present Parliament (elected in 1998) - it is 19,2%. In all 3 parliaments, there was a Vice president of the parliament - Albanian. In 2001, during elections for a President of the parliament, there was a candidate Albanian, who received the votes of the majority of the Macedonian MPs, but was not elected because the Albanians from the competing Albanian party did not vote for him. The last 3 Governments of the Republic of Macedonia (from 1992 to present) were coalitions with an Albanian political party. The number of the Albanian Ministers in the Government always exceeded the percentage of the Albanian participation in the Parliament. The establishment of the judiciary power was done with a consideration for the proper participation of ethnic minorities. Republic of Macedonia makes enormous financial efforts to enable the minorities to receive information through media in the minority languages. The National television has a program in Albanian since 1967. Today The National radio has an Albanian program since 1948. In the Republic of Macedonia there are 3 daily newspapers in Albanian. The country has a long tradition in functioning of Albanian arts and cultural institutions. In the capital Skopje, there is a Theatre for minorities including Albanian Drama as a unit. There are numerous Albanian arts and culture institutions which are financed by the state. The above facts undoubtedly show that the standard regarding the rights of the minorities in Republic of Macedonia are not only with accordance to all international conventions and documents, but are in many segments a step ahead. The presented legal framework confirms the inclusion and respect of all principles contained in: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, the OSCE Helsinki Final Act, the Document of Copenhagen and the Paris Charter. ------------------------------------------------------- Melentie Pandilovski Director Contemporary Arts Center - Skopje Orce Nikolov 109, 1000 Skopje Republic of Macedonia Tel/Fax: +389.2.133.541 Tel/Fax: +389.2.214.495 http://www.scca.org.mk ------------------------------------------------------- -----Syndicate mailinglist-------------------- Syndicate network for media culture and media art information and archive: http://www.v2.nl/syndicate to post to the Syndicate list: <[email protected]> to unsubscribe, write to <[email protected]> in the body of the msg: unsubscribe [email protected]