As a heritage from the Soviet period (1945-1991) about 500,000-700,000 (mostly Russophone) persons (military persons, workers and others) lived in Latvia with little or no command of Latvian. During the same period, the Russian language had replaced Latvian in the public administration. Following the restitution of independence in 1991, one of the key questions for the Latvian Government was the development and implementation of a successful language policy. For this purpose, a State language law was elaborated, followed by the Education Law and the Citizenship Law, which also addressed the language issue. The design and implementation of these laws caused a heated public debate. In this paper, the legislation process (the design and amendments of the laws) will be juxtaposed with what happens on the ground (through quantitative and qualitative survey results). (Contains 5 figures.)