The Slovenia Times

Family Law Referendum Would Breach Constitution

Nekategorizirano


The ministry has assessed that a referendum campaign and a possible rejection of the act introducing additional rights for gay couples and liberalises the definition of the family in a referendum would be a breach of the Constitution.

A public campaign against the family law act would violate the constitutional ban on encouraging inequality and intolerance, Labour, Family and Social Affairs Minister Ivan Svetlik told the press in Ljubljana.

The request for a constitutional review had been filed on 26 August by MPs of the coalition SocDems and LibDems, the five unaffiliated MPs, as well as Zares and the Pensioners' Party, which both left the coalition.

Before the issue can be reviewed by the Constitutional Court, the motion needs to be discussed by the parliamentary Committee for Labour, the Family, Social Affairs and the Disabled, and then passed in the National Assembly.

According to Svetlik, during the passage of the family law act "people's disagreement with equal treatment of individuals regardless of their choices regarding the type of family they want to live in came up".

The ministry therefore fears that the referendum campaign would further enhance this intolerance, which would be "highly controversial", and maintain systemic discrimination, which could cause "intolerance to spread to other areas as well", Svetlik said.

Another argument against the referendum is article 14 of the Constitution stipulating that citizens must not be discriminated against based on their personal lives, the minister said. In a similar vein, protocol number 12 to the European convention on human rights prohibits discrimination and is a part of the Slovenian legislation, he argued.

"We are faced with the danger of allowing a majority to deny rights to a minority in a referendum," Svetlik pointed out.

After a heated debate on the proposed overhaul of the 35-year-old family legislation in Slovenia, the National Assembly adopted the new family law bill on 16 June.

While shying away from initial announcements of gay marriage and adoption, the bill introduces additional rights for homosexuals, while notably also securing better protection for children.

A day after the passage of the bill, a conservative pro-family group started collecting signatures for a referendum.

Having filed more than 32,000 signatures in parliament (2,500 would do), the Civil Initiative for the Family and the Rights of Children will on 1 September start gathering the necessary support of 40,000 citizens for the parliament to call the vote.
 

Share:

More from Nekategorizirano