European Court of Human Rights
Man fights to spell his name in Russian
Published 30 August, 2007, 16:01
The European Court of Human Rights has agreed to hear the case of a Latvian man who claims he's not being allowed to use his name as it was given to him at birth. Ruslan Pankratov is an ethnic Russian living in the Latvian capital, Riga. According to the country's laws, all foreign names must be written using Latvian grammar (Pankratovs). But Mr Pankratov objects to having the letter “S” attached to his names.
Latvian courts have twice rejected his appeals.
“The aim of the case is to allow people to spell their names the way they like. Why do linguists or lawyers, instead of us, make the decision? In no other country are names distorted this way,” said Ruslan Pankratov.
He went on to argue that if Latvian rules applied everywhere, people would be constantly changing their names.
“According to this logic in Ukraine I will become Ruslanko Pankratenko and in Georgia I will be Ruslanidze Pankratidze, won’t I? This is absolutely unacceptable,” he added.
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