The opposition Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party on Thursday, August 23, submitted to parliament a bill that includes a proposal to legalise same-sex registered partnerships from next year. In addition, the proposed bill concerning the rights of non-heterosexual people contains 23 other amending measures. It is due to be discussed in parliament at its September session, the TASR newswire wrote.
If the bill is approved, same-sex registered partnerships will be officially treated as a type of marital status. The partners will be considered 'relatives', which will have an effect on their rights and obligations regarding alimony, inheritance and access to medical documentation, as well as the right to a widow's/widower's pension. The bill would not allow people in registered partnerships to adopt children, however. Nor would it enable them to foster a child. Registered partnerships could only be entered into after the partners reach the age of 18 and could be terminated by consent or via a court procedure.
"Registered partnerships are nothing new in Europe. We're not going to introduce anything unknown to Western civilisation. Nor is it anything exclusively attributed to liberal countries. Conversely, we're going to join the majority," SaS MP Martin Poliačik said, as quoted by TASR. SaS campaigned on the issue before it first entered parliament in June 2010, but its proposal did not make it onto the official agenda of the 2010-12 Iveta Radičová government.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
