Slovak Republic is a party to several international human rights treaties including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights,the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discriminationand the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The Constitution of the Slovak Republic states that human rights are guaranteed to every individual regardless of sex, race, skin colour, language, belief, religion, political affiliation or conviction, national or social origin, nationality or ethnic origin, property, lineage or any other status. No person shall be denied their legal rights, discriminated against or favoured on any of these grounds. Serious offensive and discriminatory behaviour is outlawed separately by the Criminal Code.
An amendment to the Labour Code, effective as of 1 April 2011, extended the scope of the protected grounds to include sexual orientation and thus to get the list of protected grounds into compliance with the Anti-Discrimination Act. The amendment also included “genetic features” as a new protected ground, not covered by any piece of the Slovak legislation yet.
In response to the need to implement the EU Employment and Racial Equality Directives, Slovakia adopted the Anti-Discrimination Act on 20 May 2004, the first in its history. A significant amendment to the Act was adopted in June 2007. The second important amendment was passed in February 2008 and entered into force in April 2008. The Anti-discrimination Act meets the minimum standards required by both Directives.
Apart from the Anti-discrimination Act, several special laws were amended in the area of education, health care and employment. These amendments basically refer to the Anti-discrimination Act, sometimes extend the scope of grounds protected by it (sex, religion or belief, race, affiliation with nationality or an ethnic group, disability, age, sexual orientation, marital status and family status, colour of skin, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, lineage/gender[1] or other status), and in some cases also contain special mechanisms for invoking the right to equal treatment.
The Slovak Anti-discrimination Act does not define the principle of equal treatment only as prohibition of discrimination, but also as a duty to adopt measures to prevent it.
The Slovak Anti-discrimination Act is also more specific in defining the forms of prohibited discrimination in which it distinguishes between instruction to discriminate and incitement to discrimination. An instruction to discriminate is defined as a conduct of abuse of a person in a subordinate position for the purpose of discriminating against a third person. Incitement to discrimination can be in the form of persuading, affirming or inciting a person to discriminate against a third person.
The enforcement of the new rules established by the Anti-discrimination Act has not yet been fully effective in practice.
Although there are already some court decisions (mainly in relation to racial discrimination in access to services and in relation to sex/gender discrimination in employment) and some more are pending, people in general do not recourse to courts to litigate for their right not to be discriminated against.[2]
This may be caused by rather low legal awareness about anti-discrimination legislation[3], by general distrust in courts, by lack of resources that are needed for litigation, by fear from stigmatisation and/or loss of earning opportunities etc.The labour inspectorates are also very ineffective in identifying and sanctioning breaches of the principle of equal treatment.
[1] Lineage and gender both stand for the Slovak word „rod“ which can be translated as either of these.
[2] See for example Slovenské národné stredisko pre ľudské práva: Správa ododržiavaní ľudských práv vrátane zásady rovnakého zaobchádzania vSlovenskej republike za rok 2009. Bratislava: Slovenské národné stredisko pre ľudské práva, 2010, p 154-159. See also Slovenské národné stredisko pre ľudské práva: Správa ododržiavaní ľudských práv vrátane zásady rovnakého zaobchádzania vSlovenskej republike za rok 2008. Bratislava: Slovenské národné stredisko pre ľudské práva, 2009, p 158-159.
[3]See also Slovenské národné stredisko pre ľudské práva: Správa ododržiavaní ľudských práv vrátane zásady rovnakého zaobchádzania vSlovenskej republike za rok 2008. Bratislava: Slovenské národné stredisko pre ľudské práva, 2009, p 158.
