PART of the law on hunting, stipulating that everybody who wants hunting permission needs to become a member of the Slovak Hunting Association (SPK), is not at odds with the constitution. This stems from the ruling issued by the Constitutional Court on March 16, the TASR newswire reported.
The complaint to the prosecutor was submitted by 47 opposition MPs back in 2014. They stressed in their motion that the mandatory membership in SPK unconstitutionally limits the freedom of association. They explained that hunting is not a profession and that none of the public tasks of the chamber require mandatory membership. Yet the Consitutional Court turned down the proposal.
Hunters take aim at their own chamber
“If a lawmaker wants to transpose part of the public power performance to a subject legally separated from the state, or establishes it for this purpose by a law, then the freedom of association is, by definition, ruled out in such a subject,” the court’s President Ivetta Macejková said, as quoted by TASR.
Legal representative of the opposition MPs Miroslav Kadúc was disappointed by the ruling, saying he expected the court to be as brave as a Hungarian court which decided in the same matter that the mandatory membership is unconstitutional.
“For me, such a decision is a signal that we have adopted statism, that the state is entitled to regulate, control, supervise everything it wants,” Kadúc said, as quoted by TASR.
16. Mar 2016 at 13:43
