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1.7. Driving test in Hungarian Even though the opportunity to take the driving test in Hungarian for the members belonging to the Hungarian minority is still valid, this is not guaranteed during the road test with police officers, who tend to be mostly Romanian and the majority of whom do not know or do not want to speak Hungarian at all, even in the areas where the majority of the population is Hungarian. In case of a revoked driving license, the written exam can be taken only in Romanian. Although Hungarian-speaking persons can take the written exam in Hungarian, with learning materials also available in this language, in the case of the practical test with a police officer, which is the final and decisive test before obtaining a driving license, there is no such opportunity. Police officers tend to be mostly Romanian, they do not speak Hungarian in most cases and - in order to manage this discrepancy - officers usually employ the help of people who want to take the test that speak both Romanian and Hungarian to translate for the people who do not speak Romanian fluently and thus might not understand the police officer’s instructions. This can make the communication during the test rather problematic and challenging, since one has to comply with the received instructions on the spot, not to mention that it is not the job of the prospective drivers, who are nervously waiting to take the test themselves, to translate for their colleagues.
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1.8. Discrimination in the healthcare system The global health crises caused by COVID-19 could be strongly felt in 2021, too. The communication of vital public information in minority languages, such as Hungarian, was of the utmost importance to the well-being of its speakers. It took a long time for the information related to the pandemics and the vaccination campaign to be translated to Hungarian, and even now these are available sporadically, not everywhere and not uniformly. Another unsolved problem is related to the use of minority languages in the healthcare system in general. In Romania, as in Europe and other countries in the world, there is a vaccination campaign to beat COVID-19. A strong discrimination could be observed in this field, namely that there has been no information in Hungarian, it has not been possible to register for the vaccine in Hungarian, there have been no forms in Hungarian, which must be filled before getting vaccinated, for several months. Citizens were informed about the vaccine only in Romanian and the difficult medical terminology was challenging even for those who otherwise are native speakers of Romanian. It is more than clear that Romanian citizens belonging to the Hungarian minority have been discriminated for several months and the information available only in Romanian impaired the elderly people, who are the most in need of protection. It is vital to notice that even though translations have been made of the relevant information regarding the pandemic and the vaccine campaign, it took several months and it is available sporadically and not uniformly. Our organization turned to Raed Arafat, the State Secretary at the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Romania, in charge of the official COVID-19 vaccination website. We requested that general information about vaccination and registration for vaccination be available in Hungarian. In their answer the ministry stressed that the website has a Romanian and an English version as well. Furthermore, posters in schools communicating information related to the use of masks against COVID-19 have only been available in Romanian for several months. Even though they have since been translated, this issue should have been solved at the state level, by the Ministry of Education, not the local management of the schools in case.
It can be substantiated with statistical data that in the Hungarian-inhabited counties a much higher proportion of people fail to pass the practical driving test due to the fact that they cannot communicate with the police officers
Furthermore, learning materials available for the written exam are often incorrect translations from Romanian to Hungarian, which do not follow the peculiarities of the Hungarian language. As it was stated above, in case a driving license has been revoked because of a serious traffic violation or any other reasons, the written exam must be taken in Romanian, since there is no possibility to take it in Hungarian. Our organization tried to find out the reasons for this discriminatory practice, however, even after several inquiries from the relevant authority, we were not given any plausible explanation in relation to this practice. In order to make the process of obtaining a driving license easier, writing tests should be assured in Hungarian in all of the cases and there should be Hungarian-speaking police officers to ensure better communication.
To our request that information about vaccination and registration for vaccination on the official website be available in Hungarian, we received an answer that it is possible in English
Regarding health care in general, the lack of Hungarian-speaking employees in the healthcare system still constitute a problem. According to article 7, paragraph m) of Law no. 110 of May 19, 2017: one of the basic principles of public health care is „providing in the healthcare units and within the personnel specialized in medical or social assistance, persons who know the language of national minorities in those administrativeterritorial units, where the citizens of national
