Romania

[RO] Intended laws for hearing and speech impaired people

IRIS 2014-7:1/31

Eugen Cojocariu

Radio Romania International

The Chamber of Deputies (lower Chamber of the Romanian Parliament) on 3 June 2014 rejected two Draft Laws on the use of sign language. The upper Chamber, the Senate, had rejected the Draft Laws on 6 November 2013. However, two other Draft Laws on the same subject are currently under debate (see IRIS 2012-8/34 and IRIS 2014-2/31).

The initiators warned that there are more than 25,000 hearing impaired persons in Romania. The first Draft Law (Pl-x nr. 493/2013), backed by 6 Liberal MPs, intended to decide on the use of Romanian sign language or of sign language through an authorised official interpreter. According to Art. 16 of the Draft Law, the access to public interest information has to be assured for hearing impaired people, especially on matters related to their rights. The access has to be at the required level, including a nationwide mass-media, at least on TVR1 and Radio România Actualităţi, the first domestic channels of the Romanian audiovisual broadcasters. Art. 22 stipulated that besides the already existing special programmes using Romanian sign language or sign language through an authorised official interpreter, the national public television, TVR, has to use at least on its first channel, TVR1, subtitles or to use interpreters authorised in the following cases: for public interest information, if the show is not followed by news bulletins; when airing documentaries, by subtitling, even if the dialogues are in Romanian. The second Draft Law (Pl-x nr. 494/2013), backed by 7 Liberal and Social-Democrat MPs, intended to regulate the Statute of the sign language interpreter.

At the same time, an identical Draft law (PL-x nr. 112/2014) was initiated by 12 Liberal, Social-Democrat, Liberal-Democrat and Conservative MPs. The new Draft Law was tacitly adopted by the Senate on 3 March 2014 due to exceeding the constitutional limit of 45 days for adopting a law. The Draft Law is now on the table of the Chamber of Deputies. The Standing Committees have sent their reports upon the Draft Law.

On the other hand, 19 MPs from the Conservative Party initiated a Draft Law (Pl-x nr. 217/2014) on the technical and social assistance to hearing and speech impaired persons. According to Art. 16, 80% of the cultural, political and general interest programmes aired by the public television, Televiziunea Română (TVR), must have written subtitles. The Draft Law was rejected by the Romanian Senate on 15 April 2014. The Draft Law is now on the table of the Chamber of Deputies. The Standing Committees have sent their reports upon the Draft Law.