The Constitutional Court of Moldova on Thursday struck down a law passed in December that sought to provide the Russian language with legal protections alongside the Moldovan state language. The Constitutional Court ruled that the law was unconstitutional, as the constitution of Moldova does not allow for any other languages aside from Moldovan to be recognized as a special language within the country.

The 2020 law, No. 234 “On the functioning of languages spoken in the territory of the Republic of Moldova,” positioned Russian as having a special status for use in interethnic communication. The law also required all state documents to be translated into Russian and mandated that state agencies receive and process requests in Russian as well. Furthermore, the law required all goods manufactured in Moldova to be labeled in Russian next to Moldovan. The law was passed in December by pro-Russian members of parliament against the opposition of Moldova’s pro-EU president.

The constitutionality of the law was quickly called into question. The constitution of Moldova states in Article 13 that the state language is Moldovan, which is the local name for the Romanian language used by a majority of Moldova. While Article 13 § (2) states that the State recognizes and protects the right to the preservation, development and functioning of the Russian language, it also groups Russian as an equal alongside other languages spoken in Moldova, all of which are distinct from the official state language. The Constitutional Court interpreted this to mean that Russian could not be given special status among other languages. Because of this, No. 234 was ruled unconstitutional and is now legally void.

This law and its subsequent striking marks the latest in a longstanding legal tug-of-war between the opposing pro-Russian and pro-EU political factions in Moldova.