RIGHTS-SLOVAKIA: Move to Make Communism a Crime

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ed Holt

BRATISLAVA, Jul 19 2002 (IPS) - Nearly thirteen years after the fall of communism in eastern Europe, the Slovak parliament has passed a new bill that makes support for communist ideology a criminal offence.

The proposed law is awaiting approval by President Rudolf Schuster. The President has indicated he may not approve the law. But the parliamentary approval has generated a strong dispute that has seen many human rights groups coming down on the side of the communists against legislators.

The Slovak Communist Party says the proposed new law violates human rights. Leaders of the Slovak Communist Party (KSS) say that if the new legislation is approved by the President they will ask for asylum in the U.S.. or the European Union (EU).

“The amendment is anti-constitutional and goes against the European charter of human rights,” the party said in a statement. “Some want to eliminate us because they see us as an undesirable obstacle. This is an a ttempted liquidation of a communist party which refuses to give up its identity.” The party had won five per cent of the vote in the recent polls.

The Slovak parliament voted an amendment to the country’s penal code on July 10 making the promotion of communist ideology, or the denial, approval or excusing of crimes under the previous communist regime punishable by six months to three years in jail.

The proposed law is similar to an existing law that makes support for fascism or fascist ideology a criminal offence.

Two other bills were passed along with the bill on communism. One seeks to ban employees of the former communist secret police, the StB, from working in the current secret service (SIS). The second allows StB archives to be opened to the public, enabling citizens to see whether the StB had files on them. They could also see names of agents who spied on them.

Many of the members of parliament who proposed the law on communism are dissidents from former communist regimes. One of them, Jan Langos, said after the legislation was approved: “The truth will make us free.”

Frantisek Miklosko, another MP who supported the move to make communism a crime, declared that Slovakia now has “the strongest anti-communism laws in all former communist countries.”

But some legal experts say the law is unconstitutional. “The criminal prosecution of expression of opinion, no matter how unethical or immoral, is unconstitutional,” says former deputy justice minister Daniel Lipsic. “By criminally sanctioning such opinions the state is telling the people what opinions are bad and what bad opinions the state may punish.”

The proposed law also drew strong reactions from human rights groups. Slovakia is among the last of the former communist states to allow public access to communist secret police files. Citizens in Germany, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have had access in varying degrees to files of former communist secret police for many years. But in none of these states is support for communism a criminal offence.

“If this law is applied to the letter it would mean that the current Slovak Communist Party would be forbidden,” says Miroslav Kusy, head of the Slovak Helsinki Committee, a part of the global human rights group the International Helsinki Foundation. “Telling anyone what way they can think and what political parties they can support and what opinions they can hold is a clear breach of human rights.”

Many people have called for human rights offences and crimes committed under the former communist regime to be recognised if not redressed. The law was passed by parliament following such concerns.

“There was a need for the crimes of the past to be clearly recognised and defined,” says Kusy. “Slovakia was behind its neighbours like the Czech Republic, which have had institutes already set up to investigate and identify the crimes committed under communism. But not all of this legislation was needed.”

Communist Party representatives have said there is no evidence of any crimes committed by communist leaders in the former Czechoslovakia between 1948 and 1989. They say they will do all they can to stop the amendment becoming law, and called on President Rudolf Schuster not to approve it. They also called on the European Parliament to review the legislation.

“The KSS will never renounce socialism and even after this amendment is adopted we will still proclaim our socialism,” says KSS leader Jozef Sevc.

President Rudolf Schuster, himself a former high-ranking communist official, has hinted that he may not approve the law. He told a local newspaper: “I agree with everything that is in line with the constitution and human rights. If I find that a law goes against the constitution or is in conflict with what is stated in other legislation, I wonâÇÖt sign it.”

Schuster said: “Many of the things that are being opened up now, slowly, 13 years after the revolution, I would judge as counterproductive.” The legislation would only help the KSS, he said. “To open old wounds after so many years will bring joy to the communists, who can use it to increase their support.”