Guidelines to Assist National Minority Participation in the Electoral Process • Page: 10 A State’s duty to guarantee freedom of expression under international or domestic law should not be limited to a negative duty, i.e. a duty not to interfere with the freedom. It should extend to ensuring that national minorities should be given reasonable access to state owned public media to express their views. 2. The prohibition against discrimination • The individual rights to participate in public life should be extended to all persons regardless of ethnic or national origin, language or religion. Those rights should be applied equally.18 Discrimination need not be deliberate. It may arise unintentionally. A neutral criterion may operate in certain circumstances in a discriminatory way. For example, residence is a common requirement for eligibility to vote in a constituency based electoral system. That requirement may however operate in a discriminatory way in respect of refugees (meaning citizens or permanent residents of the State who have fled abroad), nomadic peoples or internally displaced persons. Residency requirements may discriminate against national minorities. Eligibility requirements to register as a voter may have a discriminatory effect against persons belonging to a national minority. The following are examples of how eligibility requirements, in general, may discriminate against persons belonging to national minorities: • citizenship is often the fundamental requirement for eligibility. Accordingly, the requirements for citizenship impact on eligibility to vote. The following are examples of the kind of impact that laws regulating citizenship may have: - 18 if ethnicity is a requirement for citizenship it may discriminate against persons who belong to national minorities that do not share that ethnic origin; a requirement for acquired citizenship that both parents must be citizens may operate in a way that discriminates against a national minority, particularly one that has been the subject of shifting national boundaries; restrictions on dual citizenship may detrimentally affect national minorities. • fluency in an official language is a requirement that may discriminate against a national minority that does not speak that language; • states should not prescribe or proscribe the use of any language in electoral campaigns; • residency requirements may discriminate against national minorities. Residence may operate in a discriminatory way against refugees or internally displaced persons. Internally displaced persons should be able to exercise their right to vote, where possible, refugees should enjoy some facility to vote. The Treaty of Understanding, Cooperation and Good Neighbourliness between Romania and the Republic of Hungary relates to the Hungarian minority only, however most of the provisions of this bilateral treaty have consequences for other minorities in Romania as well. Article 15.1(a) confirms that Romania has undertaken “in regulating the rights and obligations of persons belonging to national minorities” to “enforce” the framework Convention of the Council of Europe regarding national minorities if its “lawful internal order does not contain more favourable regulations”. Other provisions concerning minorities in Romania generally include access to and free exchange of information in the mother tongue (Article 15.4), the right to take part in the resolution of issues of national or local interest through elected representatives in bodies of central or local public authorities (Article 15.5) and respect for the cultural and historical heritage of national minorities (Article 15.6).