View source for Saami Affairs Committees and reports

{{Artikkeli
|sivun nimi=Saami Affairs Committees and reports
|kieli=englanti
|id=05134
|artikkeliteksti=<P align="justify"> The Nordic states began to take measures to improve Saami affairs by appointing {{Artikkelilinkki|0520|Saami Affairs Committees}}. In Norway in 1947 an organ for coordinating education called <I>Samordningsnemnda for skoleverket</I> was established. It had three members, one of whom was a teacher called Per Fokstad. A report was published a year later which contained an exhaustive review of Saami education from the days of Thomas {{Artikkelilinkki|1631|von Westen}} in the early eighteenth century and proposed the creation of a new orthography for the Saami language and improvements in Saami school education. The report led to the production of the first Saami-language school book in the new orthography in 1951, and subsequently to the publication of the Catechism, a history of the Bible and a number of readers. In 1951 a state-run Domestic Science School for Saamis (<I>Statens heimeyrkeskole for samer</I>) was established in Kautokeino, and the teaching of the Saami language began in the Tromsø Teacher Training College. In 1956 a new committee under Professor Asbjörn Nesheim was appointed to report on Saami issues. The report was published in 1959, and it initiated a large-scale debate about the principles of the authorities policy and aims concerning the Saami. The committee proposed that the state authorities should enhance the economic, social and cultural conditions of the Saami minority so as to preserve the Saamis way of life, occupations and language. </P> 

<P align="justify"> In Finland, a {{Artikkelilinkki|0520|Committee of Saami Affairs}} (<i>Saamelaisasiain komitea</i>) was appointed in 1949. It published a report in 1952, but the proposals did not lead to actual measures. The proposals of a report of the Norwegian Saami Committee in 1959 proved equally fruitless, which caused a stormy controversy. The basic aim of the reports was to bring an end to the assimilationist policy of the governments and to create some modest benefits for the Saami. At the beginning of the 1960s, the Norwegian Parliament held a comprehensive debate on the situation of the Saami for the first time, and it issued some statements about developing the teaching of the Saami language and its use in teaching other subjects. </P> 

<P align="justify"> In the 1970s there were several full and preliminary report on Saami affairs. In Norway, the first report on the situation of the Saami (NOU 1975:37) dealt with further education and included proposals for drawing up a curriculum. In Finland, a Saami Committee was established by the Council of State (the cabinet) in 1971, and in its 1973 report (1973:46) it made a proposal for a Saami Bill. The draft bill included provisions concerning the definition of a Saami, a Saami Area, a Register of Saamis, the position of the Saami language, the use of natural resources in the Saami Area, a Saami administration together with its powers of jurisdiction and its election, the founding of nature reserves and the establishment of a Saami Fund. On the basis of these proposals, the Statute on the {{Artikkelilinkki|0523|Saami Delegation}} (824/1973) was passed. It contained provisions for the definition of a Saami, regulations concerning the establishment and election of a Saami Delegation and the definition of a Saami Homeland. </P> 

<P align="justify"> In Sweden, an expert advisory group was appointed in 1973 to consider measures for supporting the Saami language and culture. Its full report (SOU 1975:99-100) and appendices contain an account and statistics relating to the current legal position of the Saamis and their culture and organizations. </P> 

<P align="justify"> The 1980s and 1990s were truly a period of committee reports, and the results began to show in the late 1980s in the form of important changes in legislation. In Norway, the findings of the Committee for Saami Rights, appointed in 1980, were published in a report (NOU 1984:18) on the legal position of the Saami. A committee report (NOU 1985:14) on culture and language was issued the following year. In accordance with the new Saami Act of 1987, a democratically elected {{Artikkelilinkki|0521|Saami Parliament}} (<I>Sámediggi/Sameting</I>) was established. In 1988 the Saami were recognized as an indigenous people in the constitution of Norway (§110a 1988). The article of the constitution dealing with the Saami obliges the state to ensure that the Saami as an indigenous people are able to practice and develop their language culture and social way of life. The Norwegian Saami Parliament began to operate in 1989. </P> 

<P align="justify">In Sweden the Saami Rights Commission was appointed by the Swedish government in 1983 to investigate how the legal status of the Saami people in Sweden could be strengthened. The original goal of the Commission was to specify three main tasks: to enhance legal protections for reindeer husbandry, to consider the possibilities of establishing a Saami institution to represent the interests of the Swedish Saami people and to recommend positive measures for strengthening the position of the Saami language. Later the task was extended to consider the position of the Saami as an indigenous people in existing international law. The Commission reported its findings and recommendations to the government as follows: in 1986 about the Saami people's legal status (<i>Samernas folkrättsliga ställning. Delbetänkande av sammerättsutredningen. SOU 1986:36</i>), in 1989 about Saami rights and a Saami Assembly (<i>Samerätt och sameting. Huvudbetänkande av samerättsutredningen SOU 1989:41</i>) and in 1990 about Saami rights and the Saami language (<i>Samerätt pch samiskspråk SOU 1990:91</i>). In Sweden on the basis of these recommendations a recognition of the special position of the Saami as an indigenous people was included in the article of the Constitution Act relating to minorities. In 1992 an act was passed in Sweden which contained the basis for the foundation of a {{Artikkelilinkki|0521|Saami Parliament}}, and the Swedish Saami Parliament was elected in 1993, the International Year of Indigenous Peoples. The position of the Saami was not recognized at constitutional level in Sweden until 1997, when the Swedish Parliament passed a bill based on proposals submitted by a committee concerning the protection of national and historical minorities and their languages (SOU 1997:192, 193). </P> 

<P align="justify"> In Finland in 1983, the Council of State established a Committee for Saami Culture, on which the relevant ministries and the Saami Delegation were represented. The report of the Committee for Saami Culture (1985:66) dealt extensively with the cultural life and organizations of the Saami, but it did not lead to any immediate measures being taken. The committee made numerous proposals for funding cultural life and organizational activities. New research at the end of the 1980s introduced some highly pertinent considerations particularly with regard to the existence of the Saamis right of ownership of the land, and this led to new committee reports. In 1994 a proposal for a Saami Law (1990:32) was drafted by the Advisory Committee for Saami Affairs. It contained legislative proposals both for establishing the Saamis land rights and for the administration of these rights. The proposed bill never went before Parliament. Instead it was divided into two parts. It was decided to continue the elucidation of land rights within the Saami Delegation and to draw up provisions in the Ministry of Justice for {{Artikkelilinkki|0558|Saami cultural self-determination}}. Issues related to occupations in the legislation were combined with the elucidation of rights. In 2000, the Ministry of Justice set up a Committee for Saami Affairs under Hannele Pokka, the Governor of the Province of Lapland, to study and report on how, on the one hand, the rights of the Saami as an indigenous people might be upheld on state land within the Saami Homeland and their culture and traditional occupation be developed, while taking account, on the other hand, of local conditions and their developmental requirements. The intention was that Finland might be able to ratify the {{Artikkelilinkki|0530|ILO Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries (No. 169)}}. The work of determining the land rights of the Saami are still continuing. </P> 

<P align="justify"> The position of the Saami language was established in 2000 with new language legislation based on the proposals of committees set up to draft language laws in the various Nordic countries, first in Norway, then in Finland and finally in Sweden. </P><BR><BR>
|kirjoittaja=Irja Seurujärvi-Kari
|luokat=Politics and organizations
}}