Open debate on human rights

The Government Council for Human Rights, Ethnical Minorities and Gender Equality headed by minister of foreign affairs and European matters of the Slovak republic, Miroslav Lajcák, planned to approve the National Strategy on Protection and Support of Human Rights on its meeting on 4 September. Planned – but didn´t approve, mainly due to the protests of official representatives of the Catholic Church and 69 non-governmental organizations working in the area of human rights, protection of life and family. In an open letter they required public and expert discussion of the Strategy on national level and upon this appeal, the Council decided to postpone the approval of the document until June 2014. Voice of the Catholic Church. The Strategy focuses on ten questions regarding protection of human rights, with rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersexual (LGBTI) persons among them. From the point of view of the Bishops´conference of Slovakia, the proposal of the document is “unbalanced and ideologically overcast”, as it questions the relevance of traditional family and marriage. “It seems that it contradicts the Program declaration of the Government of the Slovak republic and denounces a moral doctrine of Christian Churches”,reads the letter to minister Lajcák signed by archbishop of Bratislava, mons. Stanislav Zvolenský, who suggests to leave out of the document the issue regarding gender ideology and add four other areas that deserve an attention of the official representatives and the public – right of unborn children to life, right to objection of conscience, rights of parents, and right to religious freedom and freedom of expression. Respect for the principles of natural law. 69 non-governmental organizations wrote a letter to prime minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, at the end of July, demanding that the government “should reassess the process of creation of the National Strategy on Protection and Support of Human Rights”. According to the signatories of the letter, so-called “new human rights”formulated in the document “weaken stability of family and whole society”, as the strategy is clearly marked by “evident traces of gender ideology”. NGO´s are convinced that the gender ideology “does not protect coherence of men and women, stability of family and it endangers children, young people and their psycho-sexual development”. Measures should be taken to “strengthen the position of family, insitution of marriage of one man and one woman, motherhood, fatherhood, as well as protection of the value of life and basic ethical principles given by natural law”,suggest the representatives of the third sector. Coordinated approach. The activity of NGO´s in regard to the Strategy did not end with an open letter to the prime minister. Their representatives have launched a mutual cooperation consisting of meetings over particular areas of interest regarding the document, discussions with experts and representatives of Churches, and the efforts have resulted in a document containing 180 pages of comments, critical remarks and suggestions. “We want our voices to be really heard by those who are have responsibility for development of our society, not just in a form of uncoordinated attitudes but as clearly formulated arguments based on expert opinions”,explains Marcela Dobesová, president of Forum for Life. “I believe that if the Strategy is to define rights of various groups of people, it is necessary that its logics and structure follow already existing agreements adopted by the United Nations. It means that it´s necessary to pay special attention to the rights of children, women, migrants, disabled persons. All these questions are legally settled but we need to focus on their better implementation within the legal system of the Slovak republic”,adds Frantisek Neupauer, president of Forum of Christian Institutions (FCI). As he stresses, “family is the basic cell of the society and it should be privileged and protected by any form of legislation”.There´s also an importance to protect rights of conceived children to be born, continues Neupauer: “Abortion was a criminal act in our country before 1950, later it was permitted in cases of health complications and social reasons. It´s necessary to reopen the topics regarding laws implemented during the communist regime”,concludes the president of FCI. Hope for the future. The zeal of non-governmental organizations and Churches definitely hasn´t remained unnoticed by the authorities in charge. They have clearly said that if the society is to have any decent future, natural laws of human existence need to be followed. Upon their activities and steps taken, the Council for Human Rights has decided to open the discussion on national level taking into account “a conception of development of civil society in participative dialogue” here is still a lot to be done, but the first step has been already made.