email icon Email this citation

Slovakia:
Problems of Democratic Consolidation
and the Struggle for the Rules of the Game

Sona Szomolányi and John Gould, editors

New York

Columbia International Affairs Online

1997

Bibliographic Data

8. The State Of Human And Minority Rights In Slovakia

Miroslav Kusy

1. 1989, A Starting Point

Slovakia and most of its Central and Eastern European neighbors states are associated states of the European Union (EU) and have thus instituted the prerequisite elementary human rights' guarantees required by that institution. Similarly, most of these associated states share a collective experience with communist human rights injustices in the former Soviet Block. Thus, comparing Slovakia's human rights performance to the performance of surrounding Eastern and Central Europe countries provides an important indicator of its progress.

Following the end of World War II, most Western countries adopted the human rights regime set out by the United Nations Charter (1945) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Western and developing democracies thus became associated with improvements in promoting and protecting human rights. By contrast, Eastern countries established dictatorships of the proletariat which portrayed human rights as an ideological trick of the bourgeoisie intended to distract the attention of workers from the class struggle and the task of building socialist and communist societies. Instead of promoting and protecting human rights, the East focused more on "uncovering their bourgeois substance." Instead of improving the role of civil and political rights in the life of socialist society, they concentrated upon man's obligations to his work unit, the party and the state, as well as to building socialism.

With the beginning of the Helsinki process in 1975, several totalitarian regimes made human rights concessions. In practice, however, these were minor cosmetic adjustments that did not influence the essence of the communists' approach to human rights. Civil and political rights remained dependent on the will of totalitarian power because they had not been constitutionally guaranteed. Even where formal constitutional provisions existed, the principle of the leading role of the communist party took precedence. Moreover, the purpose of socialist law and justice was to serve the "interests of the working class." This was defined as needed by the authorities. As one analyst noted, "...in these societies social oppression was primarily oppression by the state. The State and the Party controlled society through a biased and discretionary legal system and through state ownership of the national industries. Liberation in these countries meant the curtailment of the powers of the state and the bureaucracy--it is in this context that rule of law and privatization are to be understood" (Sajó 1993, p. 322).

Experience in opposition to these totalitarian regimes taught the post-1989 political establishment that they must place extraordinary emphasis on human rights. Generally, prior to 1989, most of them "felt that they were persecuted by the existing legal system. Their criticism was based less on the technical concepts or models of Western constitutionalism and rule of law than on universal human rights. This position related tactically to a possibility offered by international conventions on human rights" (Sajó 1993, p. 326).

The negative attitude in practice towards human rights found in Marxist ideology took on varied forms across communist countries. The promotion of human rights was significantly different in the countries of the former Soviet Union than in Central-European communist countries. Differences could also be noted between Central European countries. Most countries suffered under the standard Stalinist terror of the early-mid 1950's. After Prague's Spring of 1968, however, Czechoslovakia underwent "normalization," which entailed a return to Stalinist totalitarian practices. Meanwhile, Poland and Hungary liberalized. There were hence growing differences in liberties of movement (especially for travel to the West), confession, private enterprise, scientific research, association, and many others. Polish and Hungarian liberalization included numerous improvements in human rights, for example, the creation of the institution of ombudsman in Poland, and the legalization of opposition political parties in Hungary. Czechoslovakia's hard line communist regime, by contrast, remained least amenable to human rights' reforms throughout the 1970's and 80's.

The people of Central European countries were thus not equally prepared for democratic changes following 1989, or for the acceptance and promotion of human rights' in their new social conditions. Their readiness depended on the different levels of cruelty and strength of particular totalitarian regimes; as well as on the intensity, scope, duration and human rights orientation of the civil resistance. By these criteria, Czechoslovakia--and particularly Slovakia--lagged behind its neighbors.

In Hungary, Kádár's politics of social reconciliation virtually ended the communist regime's rigidity in civil rights and political freedom. The Stalinist totalitarian slogan, "Who does not go with us, goes against us," changed to the much more liberal, "Who does not go against us, goes with us." Liberalization in Poland resulted from the mass civil action of "Solidarnosc" (Solidarity) against the communist regime. Solidarity survived both the imposition of martial law in 1981 and associated attempts to increase repressive power. In both Poland and Hungary, liberalization created a mass base for civic societies within the totalitarian regimes.

By contrast, in Czechoslovakia, there was neither a Kádár type effort at reconciliation from above, nor a Solidarity-type, mass-based civil opposition movement from below. After 1989, Czechoslovak citizens were thus less prepared than their neighbors for democratization or the acceptance of the new position of civil and political rights in their lives. The roots of this phenomenon can be traced to the mass-supported Prague Spring movement and the rigid Stalinist structures of "normalization" imposed following the Warsaw Pact Invasion. Both precluded mass-based pressure for liberalization. Rather, heavy repression in the 1970's and 80's produced the moral protest of "non-political politics." Civil initiative created Charter '77 following Czechoslovakia's formal acceptance of the Helsinki process and two UN conventions on civic human rights at the end of 1976. Charter '77 earned the world's admiration and played an important role in uncovering the rotten moral foundations of Czechoslovakia's communist regime. But the movement was neither mass based nor accepted from above. It comprised a limited number of Czech intellectuals who were unable to mobilize a mass civil confrontation with the regime; a virtual "parallel polis"--ghettoized from the rest of society--which fought for Czechoslovak citizens' civil and political rights without their active participation in the struggle.

Slovakia's experience in resisting the communist regime was distinct from the Czech lands and rendered Slovaks even less prepared than the Czechs for democratization or acceptance of the new position of civil and political rights in their lives. Again the sources of the phenomenon can be traced back to the Prague Spring movement. The main thrust of the Czech reform effort included the fight for the promotion and protection of human rights. In Slovakia, the fight was primarily focused on demands for a federal Czechoslovak state in which the Slovak nation would be given equal status with the Czechs. Hence the slogan, "Federalization first, then democratization!" During normalization, Charter '77 remained an almost exclusively Czech dissent movement for human rights. Only a few Slovak dissidents participated.

During normalization, dissent in Slovakia was more focused on gaining religious freedoms than wider human rights and liberties. The Catholic church secretly organized a campaign for freedom of confession and the demand that the state appoint Catholic Bishops to fill open seats. The movement had a mass base and produced a number of notable pilgrimages, petitions, and particularly the harshly repressed Bratislava Candle Demonstration of February 1988. However, the movement never crossed over to civil political dissent or the fight for complex civil rights and political freedoms.

Slovakia was thus less prepared than the Czech Lands, Poland and Hungary for democratic transformation and the introduction of human rights and political freedoms into its political system and citizens' consciousness. Yet this was partially concealed by Slovakia's membership in the united Czechoslovak state--with its common legal system and political culture. Differences only began to appear after the breakup of the ÈSFR on January 1, 1993.

2. 1993, Initial Conditions

The breakup of Czechoslovakia and the creation of an independent Slovakia occurred in the middle of the transformation process. In 1991, the Bill of Basic Rights and Freedoms put human rights guarantees in Czechoslovakia into federal law. 1 The bill corresponded with existing norms set by the European Treaty of 1950 and fulfilled one of the basic conditions for membership within the Council of Europe (CoE). The Slovak National Council (SNC), Slovakia's parliament, incorporated the federal Bill of Rights into the Constitution of the Slovak Republic on September 1, 1992.

Slovakia's early adoption of European human rights standards earned it conditional acceptance as a member-state of the CoE. Complications, however, soon began to appear in the search for a new identity for the Slovak state. Parliamentary elections in 1992 brought into power the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) which ruled with the silent support of the Slovak National Party (SNS). HZDS presided over the formation of the new Slovak state. They argued that independence culminated a long national journey to statehood. This idea was formally expressed on July 17, 1992 in the Declaration of the Slovak National Council on the Sovereignty of Slovak Republic. Slovak statehood, the document claimed, would fulfill "a thousand year effort of achieving independence for Slovaks." It would assert the "natural right of the Slovak nation to its self-determination." This interpretation of Slovak sovereignty was supposed to represent, "the basis of the sovereign state of the Slovak nation." (Deklarácia  1992, p. 73). The diction and spirit of the Declaration was then directly transformed into the Preamble of the Slovak Constitution which began, "We, the Slovak nation...," (Ústava  1992, p.13) Again, the document refers to a Slovak history of fighting for national existence and the right of Slovaks to build a nation-state.

Hence, from the very beginning, the conception of the nation-state excluded national minorities from participating in state-formation. This remains a severe problem for a state whose population may be comprised of as much as 20 percent national minorities. 2 For this reason, ethnic Hungarian MP's of the Slovak Parliament left the session hall of the National Council in protest before the vote on the Constitution of Slovakia. The Hungarian MP's argued that their constituents, comprising 11.3 percent of the population, did not fit into the category "We, the Slovak nation...." The fundamental violation of the civic principle in this case implied that the attitude of the new government towards minority rights would be a source of continuing tension.

The ruling government's attitude had a nationalistic logic. Building a nation-state requires the division and unification of the state on an ethnic basis. A nation strengthens as it struggles against those who threaten its national interests. Other nationalities are pointed out as potential or actual enemies. During their struggle from 1990-1992, Slovak advocates of independence first identified Czechs and their politicians as enemies of the Slovak nation. Slovak nationalists led the patriotic campaign for independence against them. With the creation of the Slovak Republic they have focused on resident and foreign Hungarians whose political representation is supposed to threaten the new state by requesting minority rights.

Minority rights have thus become an important and increasingly delicate issue. The Czechoslovak Federation guaranteed minority rights on a federal level by constitutional legislation. Formally, they were enforced by the government, the President, Parliament and the Constitutional Court. Because minorities were concentrated in Slovakia, the minority problem became an issue of contention between the nationally oriented ethnic Slovaks, other minorities, and their political representatives. A guarantee of minority rights by an ethnically neutral Prague was an acceptable and safe solution for ethnic minorities.

After the split of the federation, the ethnic Slovak majority of Slovakia took over control of rights guarantees. A neutral arbiter ceased to exist. Minorities of Czechoslovakia viewed the creation of the new state with concern. Nationally oriented ethnic Slovak representatives of the new state failed to attempt to allay minority concerns through a declaration of guarantees of inter-ethnic equality. Rather, they addressed the public in disquieting nationalistic rhetoric that focused mainly on the Hungarian minority. Minority requests for legal norms and guarantees of minority rights were met by demagogic assertions about the higher standard of minority rights in Slovakia. Hungarian requests, they argued, were both without substance and misrepresented Slovak reality.

Minority concerns went beyond resentment of and anxiety over ethnic Slovak nationalist rhetoric. The concept of the Slovak nation-state, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, was translated into the basic institutions of the new country--with all its consequences for the promotion and protection of human, and especially minority rights.

We can already find these consequences in the Constitution of the Slovak Republic. The Slovak national language is the official state language which could restrict the rights of minorities to use their native language in official communication--a basic minority right. National minorities also find the use of Slovak national attributes and symbols as state symbols to be offensive. In the past, the shield of the Hungarian Empire incorporated the Slovak national sign (a shield with a double cross on three hills). The Slovak national sign also formed part of the shield of the Czechoslovak Republic. Yet the builders of the Slovak nation-state decided to dispense with this Central European cultural tradition by failing to incorporate Hungarian national symbols in the new state shield of Slovakia: Instead, the Slovak national sign became the state sign, and the Slovak national flag became the state flag.

The choice that perhaps touched minorities most deeply was the selection of the Slovak national anthem as the state anthem despite the fact that it addresses only Slovaks. Only the nationalistic prediction that Hungarians "will disappear," was replaced with the softer prediction that thunder" will disappear. Still it is doubtful that members of national minorities in Slovakia will praise the majority nation by singing "Slovaks will arise!"

3. Comparing Initial Conditions Within The Region

The Slovak response to human rights issues began to emerge after the creation of the Slovak Republic. The winners of the 1992 parliamentary elections in the Slovak and Czech Republics agreed to split the ÈSFR without a referendum because public opinion polls showed that the peoples of both constituent republics were against separation. Though the division of Czechoslovakia was peaceful, and therefore accepted throughout Europe, it was unconstitutional and unlawful. It violated a basic right for national self-determination of the nation that is included in UN international conventions on civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights signed by Czechoslovakia in 1976. It also violated the existing constitution of the ÈSFR, as well as the Slovak Republic's new constitution. Article no. 93, paragraph 1, states, "the constitutional law on entry into the state formation with other states, or leaving it will be approved by a referendum" (Ústava , 1992, p. 39).

The creation of the Slovak Republic was therefore significantly marked by the violation of the fundamental right of the nation to self-determination. It also influenced the attitudes of Slovak citizens towards their state. Many felt that yet another turning point in Slovak history had been discussed and decided "about us, without us:" like Munich, behind closed doors and without their participation. The Slovak and Czech separation also contradicted procedures adopted by other post-communist countries in similar situations. Ninety percent of the Ukrainian population confirmed the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine and the following separation in a national referendum on December 1, 1991 (Futey 1996, p. 29). There were similar outcomes in referendums in Slovenia and Croatia, as well as in the former Soviet Baltic republics.

Yet, in general, the constitutional protection of human rights remains poorly very developed in the region. As one analysts comments:

Throughout post-communist Eastern Europe, there are new constitutions and yet there is no constitutionalism. The courts do not have experience in directly applying the constitution. Judges... prefer to base their decisions on lower (i.e. safer) statutes.... This important defect of post-communist judicial practice is especially crippling.... In the so called 'new democracies' the constitutions are by far more progressive, from the perspective of rights defense than the ordinary laws are, many of which are not yet touched by the reformer's hand. Important constitutional rights often float in a normative vacuum. They are not supported by a set of statutes and administrative acts, appearing merely as unenforceable political promises or gestures toward a better society (Petrova 1996, p. 44).

Although it is important to compare constitutional guarantees, it is ultimately insufficient to rely on formal comparison alone. As our analyst indicates, practice is often quite different from constitutional statements of particular post-communist countries. However, constitutional comparison is a good starting point and while the Western European standard in the areas of human rights and political freedoms have been incorporated into most post-communist constitutions, some significant differences also exist.

Slovakia does not fare well in either direct constitutional comparisons or comparison of the actual practice of minority rights. In contrast to Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, and Slovenia, the rights of minorities in Slovakia are not constitutionally assured. A constitutional law on minorities did exist during the communist era but it was abolished with the creation of the Federal Constitution in 1990 and a new constitutional act on the position of ethnic minorities has never been passed. Since 1990, representatives of the Hungarian minority have pointed out this legal anomaly and asked for a remedy.

A second area of concern is Article no. 6 of the Constitution of the Slovak Republic. The first paragraph of Article 6 is implemented by the State Language Act. The Language Act asserts that the Slovak language is the state language of the Slovak Republic. It became valid at the end of 1995. The second paragraph of Article 6 states, "the use of non-state languages in official use will be stated by law" (Ústava ,1992, p. 16). Yet Parliament has failed to pass a law enacting this important provision. This has created an uncertain legal vacuum for minorities in Slovakia which, in practice, has led to restrictions and exclusions in the official use of ethnic minority languages in Slovakia (Constitution , 1995, p. 31). The resulting ambiguity also contravenes Section Four of the Constitution on the rights of national minorities and ethnic groups, and specifically, Article 34, paragraph 2b, which states that "minorities have their right to use the language in official use" (Ústava , 1992, p. 24).

A comparison of Slovakia and Slovenia is particularly relevant here. Both countries are recently independent and undergoing similar processes of post-communist development. Article 11 of the 1991 constitution of Slovenia declares both Italian and Hungarian languages to be official languages, together with the Slovenian language, in regions where these particular minorities live. Article 62 extends the right to use these languages in proceedings with state authorities and public representatives (see Ústava  1991, p. 39). The provisions are directly applied in Slovenian society with remarkable consequences, specifically, "...the practice of social bilingualism in all public institutions in ethnically mixed regions. In conformity with the law on official names, the law on state administration, and the law on legal matters, all official documents for use in ethnically mixed regions must be bilingual; public inscriptions, the names of institutions, street or localities must be likewise." Another comparison is the emphasis placed on cultural-administrative units, also referred to as "self-managing ethnic communities" (Birzea 1996, p. 15-16).

By contrast, the introduction of the State Language Act in Slovakia has undermined opportunities for more constructive minority politics. The exclusive official use of the Slovak language, even in ethnically mixed regions, put an end to a tradition of bilingual official documentation that dated back to the Hungarian Kingdom. Implementation of this principle in Slovakia's Hungarian schools led to a strong protest against school certificates that were issued to ethnic Hungarian students only in the Slovak language.

Article 64 of the Slovenian Constitution states that, "ethnic communities and their members have a right to free use of their ethnic symbols and to keep their ethnic identity" (Ústava  1991, p. 39). No similar passage exists in the Slovak Constitution. This has recently led to tense situations in Slovakia after representatives of the Hungarian minority used national symbols such as the "Turul," 3 Hungarian flag, and the Hungarian national and state anthem. Some Slovak politicians have claimed that these acts of national expression are constitutionally illegal and should be prohibited.

Slovenian minority politics are also more liberal in granting constitutional rights to education in a native language. Generous experiments with bilingual education in the Slovenian region of Prekmurje build on the principle of inter-culturalism as a base for social bilingualism. "In Prekmurje, Hungarian and Slovene children go to the same school and are enrolled in mixed classes. Both languages are taught as school subjects to all pupils, regardless of their ethnic origin... teachers are bilingual and communication with the family is in both languages... the Slovene and the Hungarian languages are used simultaneously during each class in all curricular subjects" (Birzea 1996, p. 19). In the Slovak Republic, the Ministry of Education has attempted to create an alternative educational system for Hungarian pupils only as a tool for their assimilation. Due to the resistance of Hungarians, the realization of this alternative educational project has been postponed.

Slovakia's constitutional solutions for ethnic minority rights also compare poorly with Ukraine:

Since the Declaration of Independence in August 1991, Ukraine has pursued a liberal nationality policy. The first major document regulating majority-minority relations, the Declaration of the Rights of Nationalities, was adopted by the Parliament on November 1, 1991. In June 1992 it was followed by the Law on National Minorities in Ukraine... Based on the principle of equality of all ethnic groups, it prohibits discrimination of racial and national groups while guaranteeing minorities the right to national and cultural autonomy... The Law also defines the conditions for putting the minority language on equal footing with the state language (Ukrainian) for administrative use in regions that minority groups predominate... After the passage of the minority law, the Ministry of Nationalities and Migration was established in 1993. Attached to the Ministry is an advisory board, The Council of Representatives of Minority Organizations (Lodzinski 1996, p. 34).

By comparison, the Slovak Republic has yet to issue a declaration on minorities or a law determining their position, or even, as we have seen, a law guiding use of their native language. Also lacking is a ministry or any kind ministerial institution for minorities, or even any type of council composed from their representatives. Again, by contrast, the new South-African constitution has introduced four state institutions promoting and protecting human rights, including an ombudsman, a Commission for Human Rights, a Commission for Promotion and Protection of Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities, and a Commission for Sexual Equality (Protea  1997, p. 2).

Slovakia's Constitution also lags many other transitional states in devising protective mechanisms. Indeed, there are no protective institutional mechanisms provided by the Slovak constitution. The existing governmental Committee for Minorities is only an advisory organ for the government and has absolutely no power. Moreover, representatives of minorities are a minority in the organization. They can always be outvoted. Hungarian representatives stopped participating on the committee in February 1997.

One important institution for the protection of human rights present in some of Slovakia's neighbors is the ombudsman. The ombudsman is a special institution created in Sweden for the protection of human rights. The institution has spread in the West since the 1950's and now exists in more then 60 countries throughout the world (Chalupová 1993, p. 9). "Ombudsman ...supposes that a citizen is an equivalent partner of the state organ, he is even in some sense his customer and the task of the state apparatus is to serve the citizen (as it is paid from his taxes). Ombudsman can help build this concept of the state apparatus. Ombudsman can demand goodwill [towards] the citizen from all decisive organs and this helps create social consensus and takes the edge off of the citizen's dissatisfaction" (Chalupová 1993, p. 9).

Thanks to strong a dissident movement, the ombudsman was established in Poland in 1987 under the rule of General Jaruzelsky. After 1989, the institution spread to other post-communist countries, including Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, and Ukraine. In Hungary, a special ombudsmen represents the rights of all ethnic minorities in the country. A legal proposal on ombudsman, was given to the Federal Parliament of the ÈSFR. The proposal made little progress, but was renewed and refused by the Parliament of the independent Czech Republic. The Slovak Parliament has not responded to a request by the Slovak Helsinki Committee to consider a similar law.

4. Present Conditions And Trends

In its most recent ranking of human rights and citizen freedoms in ten associated countries of the European Union, the prestigious Freedom House ranked Romania last and Slovakia second last. Below are the results of this ranking. The lowest score corresponds to the best results in democratic reform in the areas of civic and political rights (Freedom, 1996, p. 22):

Table 1: Combined average ratings of the target countries (in alphabetical order):

Free countries, 1.0 None
Free countries, 1.5 Czech Republic
    Hungary
    Lithuania
    Poland
    Slovenia
Free countries, 2.0 Bulgaria
    Estonia
    Latvia
Free countries, 2.5 Slovakia
Partially free, 3.0 None
Partially free, 3.5 Romania

Criteria for admittance to the European Union were strictly formulated at a June 1993 meeting of the European Union in Copenhagen. The proceedings stressed that, "Membership requires that the candidate country has achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law and respect for and protection of minorities" (Agence  1993). More recently, Bundestag deputy Rudolf Seiters elaborated in a lecture in Bratislava on November 21, 1996, "it is necessary to keep human rights, to have perfect functioning democratic institutions, to have free elections, to preserve the constitution and to subordinate military forces to civil control. The freedom of mind, the civil freedoms, real parliamentary control, the division of powers, the independence of electronic and printed media and NGO's, and the protection of minorities must be safeguarded in reality" (Seiters 1996, p. 10). He added, "the European Union and the USA repeatedly expressed their anxiety about the development of democratization in your country" (Seiters 1996, p. 11). EU stress on political freedoms and minority rights was further reinforced in a number of demarches that it sent to Slovakia.

The leading position of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia in the Freedom House rankings is not surprising. It is well known that Slovenia outran Slovakia in the race for candidacy for the EU mostly because of its stability in democracy, human rights protection, and especially because of its generosity in minority rights. A surprise, however, was the comparatively higher ranking for Lithuania which established a position among the front runners" due to its moves towards establishing both full political rights and civil liberties (Skak 1996, p. 23). Lithuania is particularly notable for the legislative orderliness of its promotion of minority rights. As one analyst notes:

After the restoration of limited independence on April 18, 1990, a (Nationalities) Committee was reorganized and upgraded to the rank of the Department of Nationalities. The new body assumed some of the functions of an ombudsman by becoming responsible for monitoring the implementation of minority rights in Lithuania... Yet another body, the Council of National Associations, was set up within the Department of Nationalities in 1991. The Council consists of ethnic communities' leaders and the associations they represent. A special section dealing with minority issues was established in the Ministry of Education. Likewise, a parliamentary commission, named the Committee on Human and Citizen's Rights and Nationalities' Affairs, was set up in the Seimas (Parliament) (Vaitiekus 1996, p. 64).

In comparison to Slovak practice, the Lithuanian case is even more inspirational because it maintains a similar minority population of about 20 percent.

A second surprise was Bulgaria's comparatively higher ranking than Slovakia. Bulgarians have made notable progress by establishing clear minority rights and creating conditions for full minority participation in Bulgarian society and culture. Bulgarian improvement is quite recent. Until recently, minority problems "went hand in hand with the severe economic crisis of Bulgaria, complicating and slowing down this process" (Tomova 1996, p. 108) As recently as 1995, according to the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights found "the human rights situation" in decline in Bulgaria (OSCE Annual Report , 1996, p. 52). But the past two years has brought a remarkable turnaround in the field of tolerance towards ethnic minorities." In their latest report, Freedom House stated, "Today's practices towards the Turkish minority--represented in parliament through the small, but not politically insignificant party, The Movement for Rights and Freedom--are fairly tolerant and at any rate are in sharp contrast to the ethnic cleansing and forced assimilation of the communist party boss, Todor Zhivkov, in the 1980's" (Skak 1996, p. 24-25).

In sum, in comparison with other observer countries of the EU, Slovakia seems to be backsliding in civil rights and political freedoms. Once a leading country in the field, worsening political stability and intransigent human rights policies have dropped Slovakia dropped one position shy of last. While, in 1992, Slovak standards were on par with the Visegrad group, and well above other associated countries in the region, Slovakia has fallen in the ratings. Slovakia fell in 1994 while the scores of other countries improved. The relative decline began again following the 1994 elections leading Freedom House to comment in 1995, "the only exception [to regional improvement] is Slovakia, where developments have taken an ominous turn since Vladimír Meèiar's return to power" (Skak 1996, p. 22; Freedom 1996).

Table 2: Democracy ratings in the associated countries 1995, 1994,1992


1995

1994

1992

1995

1994

1992

Country

political rights

political rights

political rights

civil liberties

civil liberties

civil liberties

Bulgaria

2

2

2

2

2

3

Czech Republic

1

1

(2)

2

2

(2)

Estonia

2[arrowup]

3

3

2

2

3

Hungary

1

1

2

2

2

2

Latvia

2[arrowup]

3

3

2

2

3

Lithuania

1

1

2

2[arrowup]

3

3

Poland

1[arrowup]

2

2

2

2

2

Romania

4

4

4

3

3

4

Slovakia

2[arrowdown]

2

(2)

3

3

(2)

Slovenia

1

1

2

2

2

2

Signatures: [arrowup] denotes an upward change since the 1994 survey; [arrowdown] denotes a downward trend. The figures in parenthesis concerning the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1992 are the ratings of the former Czech and Slovak federal state. 

The implementation and protection of political rights and civil freedoms have significantly deteriorated in Slovakia since independence in 1993. This, in turn, was a significant deterioration from conditions in 1990. Backsliding has occurred in the closely intertwined arenas of legislation and the political culture. The following is a list of complaints and developments surrounding rights recognition and enforcement in these two arenas:

4.1. Basic legislative complaints

a) Slovakia has not kept up with general constitutional and legal trends set by other associated countries of the EU. The Slovak Parliament has not passed a single new constitutional act to further the development of human rights. Meanwhile, many of its neighbors have taken numerous steps, including passing constitutional acts on the position of minorities and legalizing the institution of ombudsman.

b) Many general provisions of the Constitution have never been implemented due to the failure of Parliament to propose and pass corresponding bills into law. This has created legal gaps--the most visible of which is the missing minority language law discussed earlier and the postponed bill on regional self-government. Enactment of a bill on regional self-government is presumed in Article 64 paragraph 3 of the Constitution of the Slovak Republic. This would establish the right of each citizen to participate in the county's public management. Both of these cases are crucial because the National Council has already passed other acts which presume the passing of these bills.

c) The government has repeatedly and intentionally drafted restrictive and often unconstitutional bills. These bills include the amendment to the Penal Code (Act on the Protection of the Republic), the new University Law, the Act on NGO's, the Act on Territorial Arrangement, and the Act on Prosecution. These bills have often caused mass protest by the affected public (e.g. the University Law because of its restriction of academic freedoms, the Act on NGO's because of its significant impact on the freedom of association, the Act on the Protection of the Republic for its return to the totalitarian "spirit of laws"). The President vetoed most of them. They were then returned to Parliament and submitted to the Constitutional Court for review. The Constitutional Court, in turn, generally rejected the bills in full or in part and sent them back to Parliament. Parliament then frequently ignored the Court's objections and passed them again. Needless to say, this legislative merry-go round is taking a destructive toll on Slovakia's legal culture and inhibits the implementation and protection of political rights and civil freedoms.

d) Destructive consequences also result when the government does not follow valid laws. A good example is the Prime Minister's demonstrated refusal to follow the lustration law, which forbade former communist party officials and agents of the secret police from holding certain types of public office. This open refusal set a poor example for other citizens. More recently, the Ministry of Finance clearly violated the constitutionally protected ownership rights of PSIS, an investment privatization company, when it stripped it of "Sporofond," its most valuable investment fund (Miklos in this volume). Despite a decision of the Constitutional Court against the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry has ignored the Court's decision.

e) In the Slovak Republic it is also common to get around laws though the use of sublegal norms. Sublegal norms are administrative rules and decrees used to implement a law. While the law may be in accordance with the Constitution and standards of civic and political rights, the choice of sublegal norms may contain a violation. In 1995, the Ministry of Education tried to use a sublegal norm to promote "alternative education" at schools using the Hungarian language. This caused a mass protest by the parents of Hungarian children who considered this to be a step towards violent assimilation. The Ministry temporarily suspended the process. In a second, related example, the Ministry of Culture employed sublegal norms to "redistribute" budgets targeted for minority cultures by the law of the National Council of the Slovak Republic to other uses. As a consequence, the number of minority (especially Hungarian) newspapers, magazines, and cultural institutions (associations and theaters) have diminished, while a few are left struggling to survive. The Ministry of Culture uses a significant amount of this budget for different purposes, many of which are focused against national minorities (e.g. for the pro-government daily Slovenská Republika ).

f) Many foreigners--expatriate visitors, gastarbeiters, refugees, etc.--ask for their rights within Slovakia. They also have civil and political rights, yet usually in a somewhat more restricted form than citizens. In 1995, the National Council of the Slovak Republic passed two restrictive laws on foreigners: one that restricted the stay of foreigners in the Slovak Republic and a second that limited the rights of refugees. Both laws caused concern and raised objections from the affected groups and involved NGO's that monitor the implementation of human rights in Slovakia.

4.2. Civic and political culture

Civic culture: A citizen can complain about the attitude of the state--its ignorance and violation of human rights--only if he/she recognizes his/her rights, ranks these rights high on a scale of values, and asks for their implementation and protection thus becoming politically engaged. A high level of human rights or civic culture is the basis of a developed civil society. It influences citizens relations with their government in all spheres and significantly affects the state of human rights in that country.

Slovakia has a relatively poorly developed human rights culture which results from--and reinforces--both the disturbance of Slovak legal culture and its underdeveloped civil society. Besides these factors, the government is primarily responsible for Slovakia's shortcomings in human rights or civic culture. Effective human rights education could both help to develop awareness of basic rights and raise the value with which citizens hold those rights. Sadly, human rights education in grammar schools, high schools, universities, in the education of teachers, and generally within society, is ineffective. Although obligatory, curriculums pay particularly insufficient attention to the topic at primary and high schools. Thus, advancing the human rights agenda is left to a few NGO's, like the Milan simeèka Foundation, and Charter '77 Foundation, which systematically deal with human rights education.

The Slovak experience strongly contradicts trends in human rights education in other EU associated countries. In Poland, a well organized Olympic Games of Human Rights is held annually throughout the secondary school system. Many universities have institutes and departments for human rights. There also exists a human rights supplement to a national daily newspaper. The Governmental UNESCO Commission, which consists of several state-financed educational institutions, contributes to the efficient process of human rights education. The Polish Helsinki Committee in Warsaw and the UNESCO Chair for Human Rights and Peace at Kopernik University in Torun, are highly active in the field. The government generously supports both. A similar situation exists in Bulgaria where, among other things, the UNESCO Chair for Civil Education at Sofia University organizes educational events, a summer school, and an Olympic Games of Human Rights.

Slovakia can only dream about this kind of development in human rights education. The governmental Slovak National Center for Human Rights only simulates real activity. The Slovak public is hardly aware of its existence. The UNESCO Chair for Human Rights at Comenius University in Bratislava is struggling to survive without the financial means for educational activities. 4 It does not compare to similar, yet generously supported centers found in Prague, Budapest, Moscow, and elsewhere. In addition, NGO's like the Milan simeèka Foundation and Charter '77 Foundation find that the state neither supports their initiatives nor creates conditions favorable for their work.

Political culture: Political culture is an important compliment of civil culture. If civil culture is rooted in civil society, political culture is tied to the state. It is determined by the intellectual and moral level of actors in the political processes. It depends upon and guides their communication with political and societal actors and determines the level mutual respect among highest officials, including members of parliament, government, the presidential office and the Constitutional Court. Their patterns of mutual behavior become a model for political culture at lower spheres of political life, influencing the nature of contact between lower executive, bureaucratic, police and other officials and their contact with the citizens. In short, political culture governs how state power will be used by the political representatives of the state. It is a decisive arbiter of the use of power in the political life of a country.

The level of political culture is therefore a significant indicator of the possibilities for development and implementation of a human rights culture. Government behavior continues to undermine Slovakia's political culture. Since the 1994 elections, Prime Minister Meèiar's administration has been marked by a lack of culture, and by rudeness, arrogance, and a basic refusal to recognize or accept culpability for scandals and hate campaigns. Its destructive effects are led by the Prime Minister's public defamation of the President, and by the support of his political movement, government coalition, and the pro-government and state-owned media in these efforts--specifically, public television and the HZDS-controlled Slovenská Republika  daily newspaper. The President of the National Council of the Slovak Republic, Ivan Gasparoviè, also contributes to the anti-presidential campaign with outspoken, vulgar, and defaming public statements.

Political culture is further undermined by intimidating terrorist actions, such as the kidnapping of the President's son and the murder of Robert Remias, a contact for an employee of the intelligence service (SIS) said to have inside information regarding the kidnapping. 5 The occasional anti-Roma and anti-Semitic statements of leading officials in the government coalition are rarely acknowledged or atoned, while their widespread nationalist, anti-Hungarian rhetoric now seen as both normal and acceptable by the nation. The government treats the opposition as an enemy of the Slovak nation and state. After the 1994 parliamentary elections, Meèiar called for a program of "steamrolling the country" (prevalcovanie krajiny) in which he would fill all important (and not just governmental) posts with representatives of the ruling coalition. Over the past two years, the coalition has successfully realized this program. It affected ethnic minorities first, yet many other spheres of the population are affected and a number of groups, including the Hungarian minority, doctors, the university community, and Slovak theatrical actors (lead by the National Theater in Bratislava) have sought to protect their civil rights and political freedoms through mass collective protest.

Slovakia's political culture is ailing. Racism, tolerated among top politicians, does little to weaken--and may even strengthen--racist tendencies in the population. It can therefore contribute to militant attacks, for example, against Roma. Incidents caused by skin-heads have had a few tragic outcomes, the most tragic of which was the burning of the Romanian boy, Mário Goral, in 1995 in _iar n. Hronom. The marked deterioration of the government's political culture, and consequently of the whole nation, reflects and reinforces the state of human rights in Slovakia. There is moral crisis in a Slovak society which questions, devalues, and makes relative the basic civil values that are expressed by the European philosophy of human rights.

Conclusion

Without an efficient return to basic civil values; without re-establishment of democratic principles of constitutionalism and rule of law; and without the restoration and development of Slovak human rights culture; this young and unstable state will be condemned to a more chaotic and uncertain future. Until now, representatives of the Slovak state have not been able to conceptualize a Slovak State that is founded on principles which unite all of its inhabitants. If Slovakia does not identify a unifying conception of statehood in the near future, only the iron fist of government power will be able to hold Slovakia together in the long term. This is sufficient for a totalitarian regime, but certainly not for a humane plural democracy.

References

Note 1: Constitutional Act no. 23/1991. Back.

Note 2: Editors' note: For several expert estimates of minority population, see Bricke, 1994-96. The census of 1991 revealed 14 percent minorities in the Slovak population. Bricke's upper 20 percent estimate includes minority Roma who may have indicated Slovak ethnicity in the census. Back.

Note 3: The Turul is bird from Hungarian mythology. Back.

Note 4: The author held the UNESCO Chair for Human Rights from its establishment in 1993 through 1997. Back.

Note 5: Editors'note: Austrian court statements and the initial findings of two consecutive police investigators into the Kovaè Jr. kidnapping suggested the possibility of involvement of some members of SIS. Both police investigators were dismissed. The pro-government press produced leads that implicated Presidential involvement and speculated that the event had been staged to embarrass the government. Since, many Slovaks, as well as representatives from the EU, consider government investigation of these crimes to be inadequate. Back.