Nationalist party SNS is already boasting that it is halfway to its target of 350,000 signatures needed to call a referendum on the use of Slovak as the only official administrative language in the country, reports TASR newswire today.
The party wants to hold a referendum that will contest the recently passed Minority Languages Act, which among other things allows the use of minority languages in certain municipalities where the minority population accounts for at least 20% of the total. This figure will drop to just 15% of the local population after ten more years.
The SNS party has been collecting signatures for almost 3 months already, and it hopes to have the full 350,000 signatories sometime in the autumn. As the issue concerns basic human rights and liberties, some experts feel that a referendum will not be allowed as the Constitution does not permit referendums on such issues.
Deputy chairman Andrej Danko noted that the SNS party not only felt that this “vital” referendum was fine as regards the Constitution, but also that the rights of the minority should not be allowed to suppress the majority.