At a meeting held today, September 3, the deputies of the Gagauzia People’s Assembly decided to send to the Parliament of Moldova a bill aimed at returning the patronymic column to the national passports of citizens of the Republic of Moldova.
The essence of the law is that, at the request of the holder of the identity document, as was the case before, the document must indicate all the personal data of the person.
Discussion of this topic did not take much time at the GSN plenary meeting. Spokesperson Dmitry Konstantinov I immediately put the question to a vote, and everyone present supported it.
We would like to remind you that a faction of the Socialist Party put forward a similar initiative in 2018. Their argument boiled down to the fact that in this way citizens from both banks of the Dniester would become closer, since “this Soviet practice is widely used in the Transnistria region.”
“Over the past year and a year and a half we have received many requests from citizens. I cannot say that they are representatives of a single nationality. This measure is a small step that will normalize relations for a later reintegration,” – said the PSRM deputy then Vasily Bolya (now represents the Revival Party in the Victory bloc).
At the time, representatives of the Agency for Public Services, which issues identity documents, said they considered these changes inappropriate. In their opinion, “this will cause confusion and dissatisfaction among document holders, since, given the ethnic diversity of Moldova, not all nationalities, according to their onomastics, use patronymics.”
By decision of the Constitutional Court and amendments made in 2013 to the Law on Civil Status of Civil Status Acts, identity documents of citizens of the Republic of Moldova began to be issued only in the state language in accordance with the rules for writing the proper names of persons of Moldovan nationality, i.e. without indicating patronymics in accordance with the traditions of the native language. The second generation personal identification documents (Bulletin), which are currently used in the Republic of Moldova, comply with European standards.
In March this year, human rights activists appealed to the Moldovan Parliament to reconsider a bill that entails changes to the law on identity documents in the national passport system. It was signed by 26 public and activist organisations.
In particular, they believe that citizens should have the right to include patronymic names in documents if they so wish. This is in the culture and traditions of many national minorities. Consequently, the current edition continues to violate Moldova’s international obligations and supports discrimination against national minorities compared to the national majority (Moldovans and Romanians), in whose culture and traditions patronymics are not used.
