The Dal University doesn’t want to teach in Ukrainian

The Vladimir Dal East Ukrainian National University has lodged an appeal with the Luhansk Regional Court against the ruling of the Zhovtnevy District Court in Luhansk which ordered the university to teach student Serhiy Melnychuk in Ukrainian and to pay him 1 thousand UH in moral compensation.

Serhiy Melnychuk told a UNIAN correspondent that in their appeal the university is asking that the court’s ruling be revoked since they consider it unlawful, unwarranted and not in accordance with the real state of affairs. Serhiy Melnychuk added that on 27 November he lodged his own administrative suit with the Zhovtnevy District Court against the prosecutor’s office of the Zhovtnevy District over the latter’s alleged non-implementation of their duty pursuant to point 4 of Article 6 of the Law “On the prosecutor’s office” and Article 97 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine in not responding to his complaint from 18 September this year where he demanded that the public officials violating his right to be taught in Ukrainian and to have his constitutional rights reinstated be brought to answer.

A briefing is scheduled for Monday, 4 December, in the Luhansk Regional State Administration with the Rector of the East Ukrainian National University Oleksandr Holubenko on “The use of the state language in the educational process of the Vladimir Dal East Ukrainian National University”.

As already reported, on 27 November the Zhovtnevy District Court in Luhansk upheld the civil suit lodged by student Serhiy Melnychuk and ordered the V. Dal East Ukrainian National University to provide tuition for him in the Ukrainian language.  The court also ordered the university to pay Serhiy Melnychuk 1 thousand UH moral compensation.

Serhiy Melnychuk lodged a suit with the court on 12 December 2005 alleging that the university was violating his constitutional rights, in particular the right to the comprehensive development and functioning of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of social life throughout the entire territory of Ukraine (Article 10) since tuition at the university was in Russian.

Serhiy Melnychuk was, up to 27 February this year, a first year student of the external department of the V. Dal East Ukrainian National University specializing in “journalism”, however from 1 March 2006 he has been studying in his first year at the Educational-Scientific Institute of Law and History of the V. Dal East Ukrainian National University.