CYIL Vol. 7, 2016

HARALD CHRISTIAN SCHEU CYIL 7 ȍ2016Ȏ In its assessment of the Czech Republic’s initial report the Advisory Committee noted in 2001 that at that moment a new legislation defining the term national minority was still under preparation. The Advisory Committee pointed out that States Parties have a certain margin of discretion when it comes to the recognition of minorities and that they may take into account the concrete situation in the country. 39 More specifically the Advisory Committee stated that in the Czech Republic there were living groups of foreigners which by administrative practice were not regarded as national minorities, and it urged the Czech government to consider providing members of those groups certain minority rights under the Framework Convention, namely according to an article-by-article approach. 40 In its second compliance report under the Framework Convention 41 the Czech government reflected the new Minorities Act which had been adopted in the meantime. According to Section 2 paragraph 1 of the Minorities Act a national minority is a community of Czech citizens living on the territory of the present Czech Republic, who differ from other citizens by their common ethnic origin, language, culture and traditions, who represent a minority of the population and at the same time they show their will to be considered a national minority for the purpose of common efforts to preserve and develop their own identity, language and culture and at the same time express and preserve interests of their community which has been formed during history. Unlike regulations in some other Contracting States the Czech Minorities Act does not exhaustively enumerate concrete national minorities. The Czech government, however, added that there was a consensual approach to draw a distinction between national minorities traditionally living in the Czech Republic and other non-Czech groups of population, i.e. immigrants arriving since the 1970’s. 42 At the time of the second periodic report there were altogether 11 national minorities represented in the Council for National Minorities, 43 the recognition of the Serb minority was underway. In its second evaluation report the Advisory Committee acknowledged the adoption of the Minorities Act as a positive step and expressly welcomed the Czech Republic’s “open approach” to the personal scope of the Framework Convention. 44 The Advisory Committee noted with satisfaction that state support programs for minorities were accessible to the Jewish minority, despite the fact that most

39 ACFC/INF/OP/I(2002)002, p. 6. 40 Ibid. 41 ACFC/SR/II (2004) 007. 42 Ibid ., para. 53.

43 It was the Bulgarian, Croatian, Hungarian, German, Polish, Roma, Ruthenian, Russian, Greek, Slovak and Ukrainian national minorities. Compared to the state in 1999, the Council had been extended for the Bulgarian, Croatian, Ruthenian, Russian and Greek minorities. 44 ACFC/OPII(2005)002. By the time of adoption of the evaluation report the process of integrating the Serb minority to the Council had been completed.

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