The Slovak National Party (SNS), a junior member in the governing coalition said on Wednesday, February 18, that it would ask the Constitutional Court for a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of a new law instituting ethnic-language place-names in geography textbooks at minority schools pending its final verdict on the legislation.
The SNS-nominated education minister, Ján Mikolaj, further stated after the government's weekly policy meeting that his ministry would not alter any textbooks in line with the new measure until the court returns a verdict.
His party maintains that the measure is unenforceable, that the place-names in question – principally Hungarian - are in some cases even deemed derogatory by Slovaks, and that the law should be struck down, the TASR newswire wrote.
According to Mikolaj, his party has completed its Constitutional Court motion and will soon file it with the court in Košice. Earlier this year parliament overrode a presidential veto and reconfirmed the law in an overwhelming vote that saw the main governing coalition party, Smer, voting with opposition parties. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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