The language ombudsman wants to increase fines in Ukraine for violations of language legislation

Ukraine’s Commissioner for the Protection of the State Language, Olena Ivanovska, has proposed that the Cabinet of Ministers increase fines for “violations of language legislation,” which most often include the use of the Russian language in the service sector, education, media, and so on.

According to her, the low level of liability gives violators a sense of impunity, while “symbolic fines” are not commensurate with the economic benefit that some businesses gain by ignoring language requirements.

“The current amounts of administrative penalties for violating the requirements of the Law of Ukraine ‘On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language’ do not provide an adequate preventive effect and do not encourage offenders to eliminate the violations,” Ivanovska said.

Earlier, Ivanovska stated that there are no legal tools in Ukraine to ban Russian-language versions of websites. Under Article 27 of the law “On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language,” websites may operate in other languages as long as the Ukrainian version is the primary one.

As a reminder, the Verkhovna Rada passed a law removing Russian from the list of languages subject to protection in Ukraine under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.