East Prefecture fires 10 police officers due to poor language skills

East Prefecture fires 10 police officers due to poor language skills. Photo: Liis Treimann

The East Prefecture of the Estonian Police and Border Guard Board has fired 10 police officers in the northeastern border town of Narva because they did not acquire Estonian language skills at the C1 level.

The average age of the fired police officers is 46.5 years, which means that some of the police officers who lost their jobs had only a few years left before their pension under favorable conditions.

Tarvo Kruup, head of the East Prefecture, justified the dismissal of the Narva police officers by saying that according to the law, employees of the Police and Border Guard Board must know Estonian at least at the C1 level.

«The police cannot break the law themselves,» Kruup said.

According to him, a similar principle also applies to police officers, for example, in the case of physical and special training requirements. If a person does not participate in the training and does not pass the tests, they cannot continue working in the ranks of the police. Kruup added that making exceptions would ultimately be unfair to colleagues who have made efforts to meet the requirements.

In 2017, 67 people who did not speak Estonian at the required level worked in the East Prefecture. The police officers' language skills were constantly checked, police officers who did not speak the language well enough were given the task of improving their language skills.

As a result of a 2021 inspection, the Language Inspectorate proposed to consider the dismissal of employees who do not meet the requirements. At the time, police officers who did not speak the language well enough had time to take the C1 level exam by Nov. 1, 2022 at the latest.