Finland PM Sanna Marin 'doesn't care about human rights for Sámi people' as reforms likely to fail
Tuomas Aslak Juuso is frustrated.
As president of the 21-member Sámi Parliament in Finland, the single most important piece of legislation on his desk right now -- one which impacts all Sámi, the EU's only recognised indigenous people -- looks likely to fail for a third time.
"It's frustrating that Sámi human rights don't seem to have any kind of meaning to the Finnish government," he told Euronews.
Other Sámi people are uncharacteristically blunt in their criticism of Finland's Prime Minister Sanna Marin in particular, over her perceived failure to act to safeguard their rights: accusing her of broken promises, and caring more about the rights of people in other countries than at home.
The piece of legislation causing such consternation is the Sámi Parliament Act, which sets out how the Finnish government interacts with the Sámi Parliament on matters that affect Sámi people.
In recent years the United Nations has repeatedly criticised Finland for the way it treats Sámi people and urged the government to get its house in order and enshrine the right of Sámi self-determination into law.
As recently as June, a UN committee found that Finland violated an international human rights convention on racial discrimination when it comes to the political rights of Sámi.
The Sámi Parliament Act would, in theory, fix all these outstanding issues which senior officials and ministers concede have the potential to seriously damage Finland's international reputation.
The current five-party coalition government had promised to finally get the act over the line, but time is running out during this parliamentary term, with a deadline of 14 November to introduce new legislation in Helsinki -- and time still needed ahead of that for scrutiny and
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