By Pavol Stracansky
BRATISLAVA, Oct 24 2005 (IPS)

A court ruling that declares unconstitutional any positive discrimination for ethnic minorities in Slovakia is being described as a “tragedy” by Roma leaders.

The ruling from the Constitutional Court – the country’s highest – nullifies recent anti-discrimination legislation which would have permitted the preferential treatment for ethnic minorities, for example, in school admissions, employment and housing.

The Roma, currently Europe’s largest ethnic minority and often referred to as gypsies, arrived in this region between 1,000 and 700 years ago and are widely thought to have come from what is today north-western India.

The pro-Roma legislation was approved by lawmakers last year, but soon after, government members, mainly from the Christian Democrat Party (KDH), asked the Constitutional Court to examine the law on constitutional grounds because they thought positive discrimination of minority ethnic groups would put others at a disadvantage.

The court ruled last week that such positive discrimination ran counter to the section of the Slovak constitution which says no one should be given an advantage or disadvantaged based solely on their belonging to a certain ethnic minority.

But Roma leaders were left shocked by the ruling.

Ladislav Fizik, leader of the Roma Coalition Party, a non-parliamentary political movement, told IPS, “This is a tragedy. The efforts of many years have been wiped out with this ruling. The Roma have been written off.

“The state of the Roma in this country is critical. Conditions for them are appalling and while it may be true that positive discrimination contradicts the constitution, this has to be treated as an exceptional case – and exceptional measures introduced by the government.”

Head of the Council of Roma Community NGOs Ladislav Richter told the SITA news agency in an Oct. 18 interview: “The decision is a sad one. It will only slow down the integration of the socially weaker Roma into society. Positive discrimination written into law was for unemployed Roma about the only guarantee that they would be given work despite their ethnicity.

“Without positive discrimination, the majority [of Roma] lose the chance to work, educate themselves and find housing.”

In Slovakia there are an estimated 500,000 Roma – many do not admit their ethnicity on national census forms for fear of discrimination – and along with ethnic Hungarians, make up one of the country’s largest ethnic minorities.

But Slovak Roma, as in most other countries in Europe, claim they are victims of systematic racial persecution and prejudice. They say they are denied equal education opportunities compared to non-Roma and that they suffer from employment discrimination, often being unable to find work simply because they are Roma.

The vast majority of Roma also live in relative poverty, and large numbers of Roma families live either in dilapidated flats in crime-ridden and run-down housing complexes, or in settlements which are little more than shanty-towns, with houses made from scavenged wood and corrugated iron.

Roma leaders had hoped that the positive discrimination legislation, approved last year, would help them especially in finding employment.

Justice Minister and KDH deputy leader Daniel Lipsic, who represented the government at the Constitutional Court’s hearings on the legislation, welcomed the court ruling.

“The Constitutional Court has confirmed that in Slovakia it is not possible to discriminate either negatively or positively against anyone, regardless of the colour of their skin or their ethnic background,” he was reported as saying in the Slovak Daily Sme last week.

“I do not see a difference between positive and negative discrimination because in both cases someone is always discriminated, be it a member of the majority or a minority.”

He also said that had the legislation come into effect and allowed Roma to receive help “only on the basis of their ethnicity, it would only strengthen racial prejudices. And it is up to us, politicians and journalists, to break those [racial prejudices] down.”

But other lawmakers said the ruling now threw into doubt many other projects, some created by the government, which had been established to help Roma.

Ladislav Nagy, SMK deputy and member of the parliament’s human rights committee, said, “Someone has to answer, and best would be the government. If the activities and projects for the Roma community that have been approved by the government will also be deemed unconstitutional, will they be cancelled? What will happen?”

Roma leader Fizik told IPS that his party would wait to see what the legislators who had originally approved the law would do, but if they fail to take some sort of action, the Roma Coalition Party would take the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

“Something has to be done. We cannot have kids starving in the streets. This is not Africa,” he said.

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