Contributed by: Jana Olearnikova, Slovak National VAW Monitor 

The civil association "Citizen and democracy“ has prepared a joint comment on the amendment of the Anti-discrimination Act proposed by the Vice-Prime Minister for Scientific Society, European Affairs, Human Rights and Minorities of the Slovak Republic, Mr. Dušan Čaplovič.

The purpose of the joint comment is to efficiently harmonize the Slovak and the European anti-discrimination legislation in areas not sufficiently covered by the current national legislation, such as sexual harassment, more systematic anchoring of certain provisions, more detailed definitions of the use of certain exceptions, extended protection against certain grounds of discrimination and re-anchoring the general protection against discrimination in the area of provision of goods and services, which has been, due to improper implementation of the European directives, considerably narrowed.

Apart from other changes, the authors of the joint comment propose to maintain the current definition of harassment, and, at the same time, to incorporate the definition of sexual harassment so that it is compliant with both the current general definition of harassment within the anti-discrimination law and the relevant EU directives.

"It is also necessary that definitions of certain grounds, to which prohibition of discrimination applies, and which are currently explicitly applied only in some areas, are expanded to all areas with the obligation to apply the principle of equal treatment. Such definitions would expand the groups of individuals who are granted protection against discrimination under the antidiscrimination law,” stated Janka Debreceniova, the author of the joint comment.

Compiled from: MVO navrhujú skvalitnenie antidiskrimančnej legislatívy, Citizen and Democracy, Changenet, March 13, 2007