Uudised

All Estonian Laws to Be Translated Into English by 2015

laine uudised-laine
29. Sep 2012

The Ministry of Justice has said it plans to finish translating all of Estonia's laws into English by 2015. Meanwhile, Russian translations will not receive funding from the ministry.

Out of the 400 Estonian acts, 150 have been translated into English so far. The ministry plans to complete 200 of the translations by the end of this year and the remaining half by the beginning of 2015, reported uudised.err.ee.

Addressing Parliament on Wednesday, the Justice Minister Kristen Michal said that translations will not be legally binding, but the goings on of Estonia must be accessible to the outside world, specifically mentioning investors and EU partners.

Michal said the ministry has no plans for Russian translations, something that was discontinued in 2006 due to a lack of funding.

"Estonia's working language is Estonian and the reason to translate the laws into English is based on the principle that we have chosen one of the European Union's working languages, which can be used to introduce ourselves to the international community. So our primary aim is to bring in investments, which will foster high-paying jobs," Michal said.

Private companies such as ESTLEX have taken over the Russian translations.

http://news.err.ee/politics/f7b47aa1-234f-4174-a2aa-f8e2f9817d86