1.2. Bilingualism in the judiciary

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.

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As it was stated above, in case a driving license has been revoked because of a serious traffic violation or any other reasons, the written exam must be taken in Romanian, since there is no possibility to take it in Hungarian.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.

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.

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

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.

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

COVID-19 vaccination questionnaires were available only in Romanian

minorities either have a share of over 20% of the inhabitants or their number is at least 5000, in compliance with the other provisions of the job description”. In this respect the situation is unchanged, there are no concrete solutions.

Moreover, unfortunate cases continue to occur in which a member of the Hungarian minority is not guaranteed the right to be attended within the healthcare system and social services by a person who speaks their mother tongue. On the contrary, they are ill-treated and even discriminated when they try to use their mother tongue. In one of the cases, a 77-year-old Hungarian-speaking woman was discriminated by one of the doctors working at the County Hospital in Satu Mare/Szatmárnémeti. The 77-year-old woman first tried to tell the doctor her complaints in Romanian, but since it proved to be a bit difficult for her, she tried to communicate her health issues in Hungarian. Subsequently, the doctor in case became angry and called on her to „speak in Romanian and communicate her health issues in Romanian, since she lives in Romania”.

Considering that there is a problem with the Hungarian higher education in the field of medicine in the country, no wonder that there is a lack of Hungarian-speaking doctors and that the use of Hungarian in the healthcare system is still a problem.

It was a particularly worrying situation when students in schools did not receive information in Hungarian about the importance of wearing a mask and the correct way of wearing it in order to prevent the spread of the epidemic

Other problems within the Romanian healthcare system which affect national minorities include the lack of critical information for patients in their mother tongue. These are – in most cases – available exclusively in Romanian, including information on vaccines, or brochures released by the Ministry of Health for mothers with newborn babies. Diagnoses by doctors are also written exclusively in Romanian. Finally, information on medicines is also not available in any language other than Romanian, which is extremely dangerous given that not understanding the use, the proper dosage, or the side effect of a certain medication, can lead to serious consequences for patients.

Observations and recommendations: The communication of relevant information in minority languages is vital, especially during the global health crisis caused by COVID-19. It is especially outraging that there has been no information about the vaccination campaign in Hungarian for a long period time. Moreover, patients should be guaranteed the right to be attended within the healthcare system by a person who speaks their mother tongue, and should never be discriminated because of using their mother tongue. Finally, pharmaceutical companies should provide the relevant information about medication not only in Romanian, but also in the language of national minorities, such as Hungarian, especially taking into account the fact that this information is already available for most medications, since the vast majority of these are distributed by the same companies across Europe.