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School Act Amendment Might Not End Up at Constitutional Court
Tuesday 01 December 2009 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, December 1 (TASR) - The governing Slovak National Party (SNS) and LS-HZDS parties might not bring the School Act amendment to the Constitutional Court in spring 2010 as originally planned, HZDS Vice-Chairman Jozef Habanik told TASR on Tuesday.
"There is no agreement on this issue yet," said Habanik. According to SNS Vice-chair Anna Belousovova, SNS has stood ready for a long time, yet still can't proceed because of LS-HZDS - as it needs the votes of HZDS MPs. "HZDS hasn't joined us yet ... they haven't formulated their final stance. And that's a shame, because the School Act isn't good and that hurts Slovakia," Belousovova told TASR.
The troubled amendment in question has introduced bilingual geographical placenames in school textbooks issued to pupils at schools with minority languages. In order to bring the amendment to the Constitutional Court, the two parties need 30 parliamentary votes.
Habanik ruled out that inter-party disputes were behind the delay. He said that LS-HZDS and SNS are waiting for "the right moment".
The two parties object to the vague formulation of "common placenames", which should be published bilingually. The amendment was drafted by the Opposition parties and passed in December 2008, with the Coalition amending proposal mandating that "common placename" needs to be referred to in minority language first and then the state language.
Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic vetoed the amendment proposal as being unconstitutional and impossible to implement. The Smer-SD, SDKU/DS, KDH and SMK MPs broke his veto in February, however, and the amendment passed on second attempt.
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