The Minister of Justice, Tuija Brax (a member of the Green party), announced her proposal for the reform of Finland’s court districts. Their number is to be reduced by nearly half meaning a geographical redrawing of the map. Many had feared that this would be very bad for the status of Swedish in the court system, with most rumours suggesting that the proposal wouldn’t make any proposal for any Swedish-language majority court districts in the whole mainland. (Today there are three).
However, Minister Brax has proposed that the district for Österbotten with its administration in Vaasa/Vasa maintains a Swedish-speaking majority, encompassing the whole territory of the Österbotten region. Even Kristinestad and Jakobstad will maintain a courthouse, although their local court administration offices will close. The city of Kokkola (Karleby) with a Swedish-speaking minority was feared to be transferred to the jurisdiction of the high court in Rovaniemi, but will stay under Vaasa with new provisions to guarentee Swedish service.
The Pargas court district in Åboland and Raseborg court district will become parts of Finnish majority districts. However, new legal provisions will be put in place to ensure their is a separate unit to offer service in Swedish in the office in Turku/Åbo which will in future also be responsible for the Pargas area. Raseborg will also have its administration in the strong Swedish-speaking majority town of Ekenäs rather than the largely Finnish-speaking Lohja as was originally planned.
Minister Brax’s proposal has come to the relief of many who feared it would go much worse. Clearly, lobbying by Folktinget and Sfp has helped. Also, I don’t think we should forget to thank Brax herself. She has spoken very elegantly on the radio and television about the needs of Swedish-speakers, especially in judicial matters, to be able to access services in their mother tongue. Clearly she understands the needs of the minority far, far better than our Interior Minister Anne Holmlund (a member of the conservative Kokoomus party). Holmlund could learn a lot from minister Brax!
(Picture source: Lehtikuva Oy/Statsrådets kansli)
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Sunday 16.3.08 at 9:11
Jaakko Wallenius
On the Finnish side the proposal of positioning the center of district court to Tammisaari (Ekenäs in swedish) was however received in dismay and disbelief.
There is a widespread belief that the center of this district will eventually however be Lohja as the Tammisaari is situated on the far corner of the district and is clearly not a logical place for a administrative center of this area in any sense.
This proposal is based solely on the imagined needs of the small swedish-speaking minority, and not on reasonability of the decision as a whole.
Saturday 22.3.08 at 22:48
Jonas
Hi! That’s interesting. I think as a whole people have been focusing too much on the locations of the administrative offices – as that’s not really as important from an everyday citizen point of view. It’s seldom, almost never, that anyone needs to visit personally such an office. The locations of where court sessions are held though is important. So, it’s good that Lohja and Ekenäs will have court sessions held in them (also Kirkkonummi will too in the Raseborg court district).
Administration naturally will function far more effectively as to serve both language groups in Ekenäs than in Lohja. It would be much harder to recruit people with the language skills required in Lohja.
There are examples of this kind of problem in other areas, e.g. there is a massive shortage of new alarm (112) centre operators who can operate in Swedish because the training course is only possible in Kuopio. (I believe they’re investigating opening training at another location in addition to help solve this problem).
The courts system and the 112-system are 2 examples of services that absolutely must be available in both languages. One is important in order to have a democratic society for all citizens, the other is to ensure their safety. There simply is no room for second-best solutions in these two areas.