Junior governing coalition parties SNS (Slovak National Party) and HZDS (Movement for a Democratic Slovakia) have agreed to file, after the summer recess of parliament, a joint legal challenge against those parts of the Education Act which will allow ethnic minority students to use textbooks with place-names printed in their native language as well as the state language, the TASR newswire wrote.
The contentious part of the law had been requested by the ethnic Hungarian SMK party which managed to get the legislation passed by parliament with assistance from fellow opposition parties (SDKÚ and KDH) as well as the strongest ruling party, Smer.
According to SNS and HZDS, they are still considering the final wording of the petition to the Constitutional Court, with SNS having submitted its draft to HZDS, the TASR newswire wrote on July 26. The final text is supposed to reflect the legal stance of both parties.
President Ivan Gašparovič had returned the measure to Parliament when it was first passed, citing ambiguousness – saying that it allowed some provisions to be misconstrued. However, it was re-approved by parliament and some observers have said that Smer was seeking to curry favour with social democrats in Brussels by supporting the legislation. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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