The YABLOKO faction of the State Duma did not support the adoption of the draft law "On the State Language of the Russian Federation" as it violates the rights of citizens, encroaches upon the competence of Russian Federation subjects and may end up serving as a tool to oppress the mass media.

For example, under the RF Constitution republics are entitled to independently set the state language and regulate its usage. Introduction by a federal law of mandatory usage of the Russian language in the names of the state authorities of Russian Federation subjects violates their constitutional rights. For example, the name of the representative authority of the Republic of Buryatia - the People's Khural - will not comply with the new federal law.

The draft law "On State Language" encroaches upon the rights of citizens who can at present apply to the state authorities, organisations and institutions using their native language. After the adoption of the aforementioned law citizens will have to use only Russian in their relations with both the state and local government, as well as organisations of all forms of property.

The proposed ban on the use of foreign words when there are common Russian analogues aims to eliminate a huge layer of the lexicon composed of borrowed words. For example, under the law the following words should be banned "deputat"- "deputy" ("izbrannik" - "the elected representative" - should be used instead), "president" ("chairman" - "predsedatel'"), "computer" ("calculating machine" - "vichislitelnaya mashina"). This raises another question - is it possible to abolish foreign borrowed terms in law, economics and virtually any branch of science? Even the authors of the law failed to comply with their standards on "purity of the Russian language" as they had to use the following borrowed terms in the text: "status" (according to the authors' logic they should have used "polozheniye" - "provisions"), "spheres" ("fields" - "oblasti"), "analogue" ("compliance" - "sootvetstviye"), "functioning" ("action" - "deistviye"), etc. "This law should not be adopted for the simple fact that it is not written in Russian," stated deputy of the YABLOKO faction Sergei Mitrokhin.

The draft law considerably hampers the rights of the media not only regarding use of other languages of the Russian Federation: it also bans usage of popular speech, disparaging comments, as well as foreign words, if there are common Russian analogues. First of all the draft law violates the rights of citizens to obtain information in their native language: secondly, the situation becomes absurd. For example, a literal interpretation of the norms of the law drives us to a situation, where it becomes impossible to publish an interview with a rural inhabitant using popular speech.

At present the law is declarative in nature and legislation does not stipulate any liability for violating its norms. However, it is quite easy to introduce corresponding changes into the Criminal Code of the RF or the Code of Administrative Violations, as well as amendments to the law "On the Mass Media", in order to transform the law "On the State Language of the RF" into another tool that can be used to oppress the independent mass media.

Nevertheless, at its plenary meeting the State Duma adopted the law On the State Language of the RF", with 248 deputies voting for the law; the required minimum of votes is 226.