Slovak parliament rejected a cohabitation bill on October 19, 2022. (source: Unsplash)
Lawmakers have failed to take a small step in helping LGBT+ couples living in Slovakia, just a day after condemning attacks on the LGBT+ community following the murders of two people who were members.
On Wednesday, lawmakers did not pass a bill that would have introduced cohabitation to Slovak legislation for a second reading. Only 50 out of 133 MPs present voted for the proposal.On Wednesday, lawmakers did not pass a bill that would have introduced cohabitation to Slovak legislation for a second reading. Only 50 out of 133 MPs present voted for the proposal.
Conservatives reject opposition bill
Richard Vašečka, from the conservative wing of the major ruling party OĽaNO, said that he wants to protect marriage as a union between man and woman in parliament.
“That is why I did not vote to introduce registered partnerships in Slovakia today,” he posted on Facebook.
The past weekend, politicians, even from the ruling parties, said that they could imagine supporting the bill. A small number backed the proposal, which does not introduce or later introduce registered partnerships as suggested by Vašečka.
The bill submitted in August by SaS, an opposition party, was to help unmarried couples living in one household, including same-sex couples. The new rights would have concerned co-ownership, inheritance, access to health documentation, as well as the right to a widow’s and widower’s pension, and the right to a nursing allowance.
Empty words
Iniciatíva Inakosť, an LGBT+ initiative, is disappointed by the rejection of the bill.
“Declarations of condemnation of hatred towards LGBTI+ people are just empty words if they are not followed by concrete actions,” the organisation posted on social media, calling for the adoption of registered partnerships and the creation of safe places for the community.
MP Jana Bittó Cigániková of the SaS party thinks the lawmakers who rejected the bill hold the same prejudices as the gunman who killed the two LGBT+ people on October 12 in Bratislava. SaS chair Richard Sulík has announced that his party, if it joins a coalition government in the future, will make its decision to join such a government contingent on its partners promising to support registered partnerships.
PM Eduard Heger (OĽaNO), who held a rainbow flag at a march last Friday, commissioned Justice Minister Viliam Karas, a conservative himself, to prepare legislation to strengthen the rights of LGBT+ people. As for the rejected bill, Heger said that it would have been better if such a bill had at first been greenlit by his cabinet and then the parliament.
OĽaNO chair Igor Matovič, who has showered the LGBT+ community with several homophobic remarks, said on Wednesday that if he were an MP, he would not support the SaS bill. It goes beyond what the coalition deal mentions, he explained to the media.
“The government will improve legislation in the field of property rights concerning persons living in a household,” the deal reads.
Disappointed president
President Zuzana Čaputová, who spoke at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on October 19 and mentioned the murders of the two LGBT+ people in her speech besides EU solidarity as well as the defence of EU values and democracy, is disappointed by the lawmakers’ wrong decision.
Slovakia remains one of the very few EU countries that grants no rights to the LGBT+ community.
“I don’t know how we want to contribute to the feeling of safety and acceptance of our fellow citizens when lawmakers are afraid of even a simple notarial act,” she said on social media.
Our society is not threatened by the love of two people of the same sex or their partnership, she added.
