Sami Parliament of Norway - Responsibilities

Responsibilities

The parliament works with political issues it considers relevant or of interest to the Sami people. The responsibilities of the Sami Parliament in Norway are: "(1) to serve as the Sámis’ elected political body to promote political initiatives and (2) to carry out the administrative tasks delegated from national authorities or by law to the Sámi Parliament.".

The extent of responsibility that was assigned and transferred from the Norwegian government at the time of establishment was modest (1989). However, more responsibilities have been added including:

• Management of the Sámi Development Fund, which is used for grants to Sámi organizations and Sámi duodji (1989).
• Responsibility for the development of the Sámi language in Norway, including allocation of funds to Sami language municipalities and counties (1992).
• Responsibility for Sámi culture with a Sámi culture, including a fund from the Norwegian Council for Cultural Affairs (1993).
• Protection of Sámi cultural heritage sites (1994).
• Development of Sámi teaching aids, including allocation of grants for this purpose (2000).
• Election of 50% of the members to the board in the Finnmark Estate (2006).

One of the responsibilities is ensuring that the section 1–5 of the Saami Act (1987:56) is upheld, i.e., that the Sami languages and Norwegian continue to have the same status. A good example of this is the current situation in Tysfjord, where speakers of Lule Sami cannot conduct their official business in that language as the municipality has not provided anyone who can speak it to assist them. This is the only municipality in Norway where speakers of that language should theoretically be able to speak it with officials, but this has not come to fruition; therefore, the Saami Parliament must fight for this cause with Tysfjord and must bring it to the attention of the Norwegian Government, if Tysfjord fails to rectify the situation.