On the Principles of State Language Policy

"On the Principles of State Language Policy" (Ukrainian: Закон України «Про засади державної мовної політики»), also nicknamed the "Kivalov-Kolesnichenko Law" after its proposers, is a Law of Ukraine that expanded the use of regional languages in Ukraine for those with at least 10% usage in a certain region, mainly to protect the Russian language in Ukraine.

On 7 February 2012, the bill was first introduced by MPs Serhii Kivalov and Vadym Kolesnichenko, and had the registration number 9073.^[1]

On 5 June 2012, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the law in first reading with 234 votes in favor,^[2] though some claimed only 172 voted in favor.^[3] On 3 July, the second reading passed with 248 votes in favor ^[4] in violation of legislative procedures.^[5] On 31 July, despite previous statements against doing so, the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Volodymyr Lytvyn signed the bill.^[6] On 8 August, president Viktor Yanukovych also signed the bill, it came into effect two days later on the 10th.^[7]

On 23 February 2014, the Verkhovna Rada passed a motion repealing this law as invalid.^[8] The next day, the High Commissioner on National Minorities from the OSCE Astrid Thors expressed concern that the repeal of this Law could lead to further unrest.^[9] The following week, acting president Oleksandr Turchynov announced his refusal to approve the repeal.^[10] Later on, newly-elected president Petro Poroshenko also called this repeal attempt a mistake, stressing other ways to improve language policy.^[11]

On 29 February 2018, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine declared this law unconstitutional and struck it down.^[12] The following year, this law was replaced by "On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language".