According to the Constitution of the Russian Federation (1993), “The Russian Federation – Russia, is a democratic, federal, legal state with a republican form of government”, where rights and freedoms of the individual are proclaimed to be of the highest value. The following Articles are particularly relevant:
- Article 26 establishes the right to use mother tongue languages and the freedom to choose the language of communication, education, learning and creativity;
- Article 29 guarantees freedom of thought and speech, of legal search, production and dissemination of information including mass information, and bans censorship;
- Article 44 guarantees freedom of creativity, cultural access, rights to participate in cultural life and to use cultural institutions, and protects intellectual property. It also claims the preservation of historic and cultural heritage and monuments as a civil duty;
- Article 68 establishes Russian as a state language all over the national territory and gives to Republics within Russia the right to establish their own official languages to be used together with Russian; and
- the Russian Federation also guarantees the rights of indigenous peoples according to norms and principles of international law (Article 69).
Comments are closed.