Southeast Europe

university degrees were set up in Gheorgheni, Miercurea Ciuc, Târgu Secuiesc, Sfântu
Gheorghe, and Satu Mare. Private higher education in Hungarian has been provided
through the “Partium” Christian University in Oradea since 1990 offering few
specialisations.
Local Public Administration: Law No.69/1991 on Local Public Administration was
passed just two months before the Constitution was adopted and, like the education law,
met with severe criticism from minority groups. The most controversial provision was
the introduction of the compulsory use of the state language in administration as stated
in Article 54(1): “The Romanian language shall be used in relations between citizens
and the local public administration authorities.” Paragraph 2 of the same article
appeared to make adequate provision for members of the minority groups: “Citizens
belonging to national minorities can use their mother tongue orally or in writing when
dealing with public administration authorities or using their services.” In practical
terms, however, this was nullified by paragraph 3 of the article, which stated that,
“Written documents and applications shall be accompanied by authorised translations in
Romanian.” Thus, members of national minorities, dealing with public administration
personnel who are competent in the same minority language, were forced to waste time
and money procuring unnecessary translations. A further repercussion was that the
answer to the application would then also be made in the official language, leaving no
practical reason for a member of a minority group to use their mother tongue when
dealing with the local public administration.
With reference to local or county councils, Article 26(2) stipulated that, “Sessions shall
be held in the official language of the state.” In practice, this meant that even if a local
council meeting was comprised totally of members of the same minority group, under
the law they were forbidden to conduct meetings in their mother tongue. The sole
concession made was that, “In administrative-territorial units inhabited by an important
share of persons belonging to national minorities, decisions shall also be communicated
in their mother tongue” [Article 30(3)].
The right of minorities to use their mother tongue in court and administration was also
flouted by the law, in contradiction to Romania’s commitments under The Framework
Convention for the Protection of National Minorities [Article 10(2)], the European
Charter of Regional and Minority Languages [Articles 9 and 10], and Recommendation
1201 (1993) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe [Article 7(3)]
(Weber, 1998:213).
In May 1997, the recently elected government realised that the law needed radical
change if criticism was to be stemmed. Alterations were made to the article concerning
the language in which council meetings could be held. The new article allowed minority
languages to be used, on request, in meetings where one third or more of the councillors
were members of a minority. The documents of such meetings, however, had to be
written in Romanian [Article 25(2)]. The new Article 23(6) provided for a local council
agenda to be made public in minority languages in areas where the minority constituted
20% of the population.
One of the areas in which change was most urgently needed was the use of minority
languages when dealing with public administration. Under the emergency order,
members of minority groups can apply both orally and in writing to local administrative
bodies, and they will receive an answer in the same language [Article 58(2)]. Provision
was also made for certified translators, in cases where local administrative staff does not
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