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One month after the enactment of amendments to the Constitution that reiterate Latvian's status as the official procedural language in Parliament and locally elected office, Latvia has amended in May 2002 its election law, repealing provisions requiring from those seeking public office to speak fluent Latvian.

The main outcome of the constitutional amendments is rather symbolic. However by requiring elected officials to take an oath of office in Latvian they may appear to be at odds with the european standards laid down in the Council of Europe's Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities (signed by Latvia in 1995, but not yet ratified). This is compounded with the 1994 law on the Saema Rules of Procedure, which article 18 theoretically permits to disqualify an elected parliamentarian should it appear that (s)he does not know Latvian at a proper level of proficiency (however this provision has never been invoked so far).

The change in the election law is a decisive step to bring Latvia in line with its international human rights obligations, in particular articles 2 and 25 of the UN international Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, articles 13 and 14 of the European Convention of Human Rights as well as article 3 of its first protocol. This move follows a recent judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (case of Podkolzin v. Latvia - 9 April 2002), which endorses and clarifies the views expressed by the UN Human Rights Committee with regard to the case of Ms. Antonina Ignatane, a deputy candidate to the Riga City Council who had been struck off in 1997 from the electoral list on the basis of "insufficient state language proficiency". The UN Committee had concluded that she was a victim of a violation of the Covenant (article 25, in conjunction with article 2) and that Latvia was "under an obligation to take steps to prevent similar violations occurring in the future".

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