Arnis Slobožaņins went to court to challenge an administrative act. During the hearing, he commented on a document - wrote a review. The text was written in Latgalian.
"I express myself much more confidently, much more freely, much more meaningfully in Latgalian. This is not a show-off or a political move," the musician explained.
The case is being examined, so the comment was received by the judge of the Administrative District Court Solvita Pujāte.
"My action is based on the norms of the State Language Law and, accordingly, on the fact that the Senate, also analyzing historically, has said that the language of communication with the court in Latvian is the literary language," explained Judge Solvita Pujāte of the Rezekne Courthouse of the Administrative District Court.
The Senate decision in question was adopted in 2009. Since then, the right to use the Latgalian language in the law has changed - increased, Arnis Slobožaņins pointed out, referring, among other things, to the Law on Historical Latvian Lands.
"Everything has moved forward, new discoveries have been made in law. Perhaps the judge was not aware of this or did not want to look into it, which I also understand - the courts are busy," said Arnis Slobožaņins.
However, he has complained to the Ministry of Justice, the State Language Center and the President of the Rēzekne Court House.
The refusal to accept a document - a review in the Latgalian language - is too simplistically motivated, said Arvīds Dravnieks, Director of the Institute of Public Law, pointing to other arguments of the judge.
"This document [referred to by the judge] mentions the Liv language [..]. The Liv language is a different language, it is not a form of the Latvian language, but
"Latgalian is a form of Latvian language, it is part of the concept of Latvian language," explained Arvīds Dravnieks.
Linguist Anna Vulāne, Chair of the Latgalian sub-committee of the State Language Center, also emphasizes the same point.
"It is a scientific error to refer to a law that specifies a foreign language. Latgalian written language is not a foreign language, and this should finally be remembered," Vulāne stressed.
What if a judge or another party does not understand what is written or said in Latgalian? Anna Vulāne reasoned that the text should then be transferred from one form to another, but this should be done by the court, not by the speaker or writer of Latgalian.
Laws, including the State Language Law, still need to be clarified, but the Latgalian language should not be hindered, experts said.
