Amnesty International Report 2006 - Slovakia

There were continuing reports of discrimination against Roma in both public and private sectors; concerns included the lack of access to education and housing for Roma.

Discrimination against Roma

In January, the government produced its comments on the Concluding Observations of the UN Human Rights Committee, which had been published in 2003 and which expressed concern about discrimination against Slovakia's 500,000 Roma in the fields of education, employment, housing, health, social care and access to services. Among other issues the government addressed the placement in special schools of Roma children. In the context of Roma children often failing school entry tests, the government stated that they "come to school without pre-school education and sufficient knowledge of Slovak, lack basic hygiene and cultural and working skills, have limited concentration, patience and perseverance, and have underdeveloped fine motor coordination, different experience and knowledge of the world, and different interests and felt needs." The government reported that it would prepare differential school tests for Roma children from a socially disadvantaged environment by the end of 2005.

In April, the government official in charge of Roma affairs, Klára Orgovánová, announced the adoption of a National Action Plan for a "Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015". The main areas of discrimination targeted in the National Action Plan are education, employment, health and housing.

Housing rights

In March, the UN Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination found that Slovakia had discriminated against a group of Roma with regard to housing rights. The case was brought by 27 Slovak citizens of Roma origin from Dobšiná, and followed a decision not to proceed with a previously announced project to set up low-cost housing for the Roma population in Dobšina, after an anti-Roma petition was received from certain politicians with nationalist agendas. The Committee stated that once a policy towards realization of the right to housing had been adopted by the authorities, its revocation and replacement with a weaker measure amounted to a violation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

Záhorská Ves – update

In 2004 the Roma family of Štefan and Olga Šarkozi were reportedly ordered by the mayor of Záhorská Ves to leave their land and the village, after their house had been burned down by a racist mob in December 2003. The mayor was also reported to have confronted the Šarkozi family with private security guards, who assaulted Štefan and other members of the family with baseball bats. In 2005, Klára Orgovánová, the senior official for Roma affairs, was told by the mayor that the Šarkozi family had been offered compensation to leave the village, which it had initially accepted and later declined. AI was unable to confirm this.

Ban on affirmative action

In October, the Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional any affirmative action for ethnic minorities, such as Roma. The Court ruled that such action clashed with the Slovak constitution, as it "violated full equality before law".

In practice, the decision appeared to ban special measures, including those designed to improve access to education and employment for members of ethnic minorities. Under its international human rights obligations, Slovakia may be required to take special measures to redress historical discrimination and the conditions that cause or help to perpetuate discrimination.

Forced sterilizations

A new comprehensive Public Health Law, including provisions on sterilizations, informed consent and access to medical records, entered into force on 1 January. The law was drafted after civil society organizations highlighted substantial gaps in the previous legislation, which did not accord sufficient protection against forced sterilizations of women.

Citing this new law, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women declined to conduct an inquiry into allegations of forced sterilizations of Romani women submitted by the European Roma Rights Centre. The Committee nevertheless expressed concern about possible individual cases of forced sterilizations in Slovakia and recommended that the Slovak authorities pursue the issue.

A case against Slovakia brought by three alleged victims of forced sterilization was heard by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The decision was pending at the end of 2005.

AI wins case against Slovak police

In June, the Supreme Court announced that the police had not acted in line with the law when, in June 2004, they prevented 30 AI activists from gathering in front of the Belarus Embassy in Bratislava to protest against the detention of prisoner of conscience Professor Yury Bandazhevsky. Although AI notified the authorities of the demonstration in accordance with existing regulations, the police prevented demonstrators from entering the street where the Belarus Embassy is located. The Supreme Court decided that only the municipality, not the police, has the legal power to prevent people exercising the right to assemble. The police can only intervene if public order is disturbed or other illegal acts are linked to the event.