Hungarian American Coalition News, 2009 (17. évfolyam, 1. szám)
2009 / 1. szám
the institutions defined in §3 (1) to accept official documents in the Czech language. Section §5(1) g)-i) and §5 (6) also exempt the Czech language from certain obligations. Section §3 (5) makes a distinction between citizens whose native language is understandable from the point of view of the majority language, and those citizens whose native language is not, and invests these two groups of citizens with different rights. * *** * RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS OF CITIZENS A discriminatory situation can be most clearly identified if we take the different categories of legal regulations and weigh them against each other: on one side, we place the rights guaranteed by and the obligations assumed by the government; on the other side, the rights and obligations that the minority communities have. Citizens who are members of a national minority are allowed to use their native language in official communications only if the law explicitly allows it: the modified State Language Law has mandated the use of the Slovak language in practically every sphere of official communications. In settlements whose ethnic minority population exceeds 20% of the total, citizens are allowed to use their native language, but the employees of state, municipal, health care and social institutions are not obliged to know the minority language /Minority language law §7 (1) and State Language Law §8 (4)/. The minority language law contains regulation §7 (2) according to which the head of the public administrative body in question is obligated to make such minority language use possible, but the law does not enforce this - and thereby does not guarantee that this regulation is carried out. Similarly, these legal obligations are not enforced with regard to health care and social service institutions; in fact, §8(4) explicitly declares the lack of any enforcement. Citizens who are members of national minorities may not use their native language to speak with employees of the postal service, railways, police, emergency medical services, civil defense, or any employee of a local government or public administrative entity, regardless of what their native language is, which languages they know, or in which settlement the interaction takes place. On the other side of the scale, the state does essentially nothing to guarantee that even the exceedingly narrowly defined right to use a minority language is put into practice. In one instance, the law prescribes minority language use (Minority language law §7(2)), but this is not backed up by any controlling mechanism or sanction to ensure that this obligation is carried out in full. The state provides no funding support for the operation of [government] entities in minority languages, or any financial incentive for officials who are able to conduct business in a minority language as well as the state language; the state does not ensure the conditions and resources needed for the use of minority languages, it does not allow official documents to be issued in any minority language, and it does 6 - September 2009 - Hungarian American Coalition not recognize as official any documents that are created during an official transaction conducted in a minority language; instead, such documents must be translated into the state language. The state does not recognize geographical place names as official if they are rendered in a minority language, and such place names are prohibited from being published on maps. The state prohibits local governments from conducting communications and proceedings in any language other than the state language; it requires that municipal records be kept in the state language, with a sole exception that allows for local government sessions to be conducted in a minority language. SLOVAKIA’S OBLIGATIONS UNDER THE EUROPEAN CHARTER FOR REGIONAL OR MINORITY LANGUAGES The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which has been in force since 1998, provides for a monitoring mechanism to evaluate how the Charter is applied in a State Party with a view to, where necessary, making recommendations for improvements in its legislation, policy and practice. An independent Committee of Experts reports to the Committee of Ministers on its assessment of compliance by a State Party with its undertakings. The role of the Committee of independent experts is to evaluate the existing legal acts, regulations and actual practice applied to the State’s regional or minority languages. The Committee gathers information both from the State’s relevant authorities and independent sources to obtain a just and fair overview of the real language situation. The monitoring takes place in 3-yearly cycles, in the following stages: 1. Submission of a periodical report by the State Party 2. Monitoring exercise carried out by the Committee of Experts 3. Committee of Ministers' recommendations to the States Parties The latest monitoring of Slovakia’s language situation was carried out in 2007, when the Committee of Experts issued an evaluation report. The report can be downloaded here: http://www.coe. int/t/dg4/education/minlang/Report/Defau It en.asp#Slovakia Dr. Péter Kovács, Professor of the Pázmány Péter Catholic University, delivered a lecture at the School of Jurisprudence of the University of Pécs, in October, 2008, analyzing this evaluation report. In the following page, you can read a shortened version of his speech. Newsletter Editor: János Szekeres, Graphic Designer: Ajna Pfenninberger. We are grateful to all those who contributed articles or information to this Newsletter. “Nothing printed here is to be construed as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any legislation before the Congress of the United States.”
