The Constitutional Court (CC) of Latvia did not see any illegal actions in the decision of the government of the republic to introduce a mandatory Latvian language exam for Russian citizens who have a residence permit (RP) in the country. Interfax reports this. If a Russian for any reason refuses to test his language knowledge, he will be deported.
After the outbreak of hostilities on the territory of Ukraine, the Latvian Seimas adopted amendments to the law, according to which non-citizens and Russian citizens living in the republic on the basis of residence permit documents are required to pass an exam in the Latvian language. At the same time, members of parliament provided residents of the country with a two-year deferment to give additional time for preparation.
The Constitutional Court of Latvia considered the demands of the Seimas legitimate and refused to make changes to the current legislation. According to the court decision, if a person who is required to pass such an exam does not appear at the relevant center on the date of the test, then this will be a signal to the state that the residence permit holder or non-citizen no longer wants to stay in the country.
In turn, the Russian authorities assessed this move by Latvia extremely negatively. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the amendments to the law a “security threat.”
Source: Rosbalt
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