Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 17:01:57 -0500
from: "REPROHEALTHLAW-L : Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Programme"
Subject: Positive developments re Slovakia/Vatican treaty
****Many thanks to Adriana Lamackova and Jarmila Lajcakova for writing an update for this listserve:
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Dear friends and colleagues,
We would like to share with you good news regarding the draft Treaty between Slovakia and the Vatican on the exercise of conscientious objection.
The draft Treaty presented a new strategy of the Vatican to include the Roman Catholic religion into the public sphere of Slovakia, and potentially other states where Roman Catholics comprise a high proportion of the population.The draft Treaty was first presented by the Slovak Ministry of Justice in April 2003 and then revised in November 2004 and May 2005. In all of its presented drafts, the Treaty sanctioned a broadly defined right to conscientious objection on the basis of canon law in areas of health care, education and employment. The draft Treaty would likely have a disproportionately negative impact on women’s access to legal reproductive health care services in Slovakia. For example, the treaty guaranteed medical personnel the right to object, but they would have no duty to refer patients to non-objecting practitioners. Disturbingly, the draft Treaty was intended as a bilateral human rights treaty, which would take precedence over Slovak laws. The Treaty with the Vatican would thus gain the same status as other multilateral human rights treaties ratified by Slovakia.
However, with the active support of the international community and especially
non-governmental organizations working in area of reproductive and women's
rights, our Slovak Pro Choice NGO has successfully advocated against the adoption of this Treaty. It is important to mention that in this process, one of the crucial results was a legal analysis of the draft Treaty, which was prepared by the European Union Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights. The EU legal experts have warned that adoption of the draft Treaty with the Vatican could lead to a serious breach of Slovakia’s existing international human rights obligations.
We are pleased to inform you that last week on Monday, February 6, 2006, the
Slovak Prime Minister, officially rejected the draft Treaty. We should note that this denunciation of the draft Treaty brought two further dramatic political developments in Slovakia: withdrawal of the Christian Democratic Party, sponsor of the draft Treaty, from the governmental coalition and the proclamation of an earlier term for the parliamentary election.
The draft Treaty and the protection of conscientious objection have been the
subject of lively debate in Slovakia over the past months. Our NGO also ensured
that these public debates were conducted in a manner that was dominated by reasoning rather than emotions. We believe that this approach in such contentious issues facilitates more constructive dialogue between defenders and opponents of the Vatican treaty. We are also pleased to observe that the burden of proof to convey the protection of relatively unlimited conscientious objection in the future has been set very high.
We would like to thank everyone for their assistance in this successful enterprise; especially to the Center for Reproductive Rights, the Catholics for a Free Choice, the International Planned Parenthood Federation European Network and others who saliently helped in our lobbying efforts. Special thanksgo to Professor Rebecca Cook, whose expertise and support were invaluable in the preparation of our legal argumentation.
Adriana Lamackova and Jarmila Lajcakova for Pro Choice, Slovakia.