The planned court reform which threatens the independence of small courts worries both their personnel and municipalities, according to a report from Radio Vega’s local channel in Åboland. At the forefront of concerns, is the risk of poorer services and the inability to speak one’s mother tongue.
The Swedish-speaking staff at the court district of Pargas which serves Åboland are concerned that the working language, which is largely Swedish currently, will be Finnish after the reform. According to them, this is something that would complicate their daily lives. In the case that Finnish becomes the working language, the step to the client being unable to receive services in Swedish to the degree they can today is not long.
According to chief judge Erkki Hämäläinen at Åbo (Turku) court district (to which Pargas will be merged according to the reform plans), there is no reason for concern. He considers it pleasant that the Swedish speakers speak their mother tongue and believes that they can do this also in the future. He also believes that the fact Swedish will be heard in the corridors will be of benefit to those staff that have Finnish as their mother tongue.
According to Radio Åboland, it’s not just the court staff that are concerned over the reform – municipalities are also. With them, it is also the position of the Swedish language that causes concern. According to Pargas’ municipal director Folke Öhman, it is vital that municipalities guarantee that Swedish services continue at the current good level in the future. According to Öhman, it seems that these days everything is decided in advance and that reform has become an end in itself.
Chief judge Erkki Hämäläinen at Åbo court regards the criticisms as unjustifiable and does not believe in the municipalities’ concerns that the status of Swedish will worsen with the planned reform.
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Wednesday 21.5.08 at 19:32
Rasmus
Bilingual solutions with Finnish as the majority language always end up as one language Finnish solutions. That’s the problem. Finland-swedes will speak Finnish happily and serve Finnish speakers well in their mother tongue. The Finnish speakers generally don’t or at least not without making you feel unwelcome first. Swedish gets lost in the sea of Finnish again in the reform. Its the plan of Center party and Coalitionparty to get rid of Swedish by stealth. Either that or they just don’t understand the needs of the Finland Swedes.
Thursday 22.5.08 at 16:03
Egan
It often seems like the purpose of bilingualism in Finland is to ensure that Swedish speakers have a reasonably easy time of it now, but to relentlessly drive down their numbers over time. I think I got that from Juha Janhunen. It seems a bit dishonest to be doing this and saying it’s good that Finnish speakers will hear Swedish, when in reality the end result (and probably the goal) is to reduce the necessity of provision in Swedish. At least Timo Soini’s up front about these things.
Thursday 22.5.08 at 16:56
Jonas
It is unfortunate that the Centre party and even the National Coalition party pretend to work for Swedish-speaking Finns (especially when they noticed that it could be a way to get more votes to perhaps finally give one of them the edge over the other), but actually don’t follow through in practice. They like to talk about it in speeches but when it comes to the decisions they suddenly forget what they said.
The SDP at least seems to have shown understanding for the requirements of Swedish speaking Finns when it has been in office. Of course, Lipponen was (and still is) a great proponent of the role of Swedish in Finland. When you look at our current government, it does tend to make you long for a return of Lipponen’s. Especially if you spend any time listening to our dreadful interior minister Anne Holmlund who has zero understanding for Swedish-speaking needs.