Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga has proposed the abolition of requirements that those standing for election to public office hold top-level certificates in spoken and written Latvian.

The president said she believed the requirements were undemocratic and gave people of Latvian origin an unfair advantage over members of the country's minorities. Her proposal follows a similar move approved by Estonia in October. Her statement came on Dec. 6 after she met judicial and human rights experts at Riga Castle, where her office is located. This panel of experts has now been asked by Vike-Freiberga to evaluate and assess existing legislation and offer amendments by mid-January. The move comes after neighboring Estonia amended its own election laws to halt the barring of candidates on linguistic grounds, a move intended to ensure closure of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Estonia office at the end of this year. Estonia and Latvia both view the presence of OSCE missions in their countries as symbolizing unwarranted doubts about their democratic credentials on the part of the international community. Both countries have now won the OSCE's broad approval for their treatment of national minorities, whose numbers grew as a result of Soviet-era settlement.