Slovenia

quarantines, enforced by the police and army, was unclear, raising concerns of arbitrary detention. Residents were not promptly informed of the duration and conditions of the quarantine. Inadequate access to water and sanitation in informal Roma settlements and a lack of adequate alternative accommodation are long-standing problems that were not sufficiently addressed by authorities in their response to COVID-19, making compliance by the community with public health recommendations much more difficult.

In July, the Ministry of Education wrote to the European Commission regarding ongoing infringement proceedings against Slovakia for systemic discrimination and segregation of Roma children in schools. In the letter, the government acknowledged the existence of racial segregation in education in Slovakia and set out a series of measures, including the preparation of a legal definition of segregation.

EXCESSIVE USE OF FORCE

Complaints of excessive use of force and illtreatment by police against Roma continued. In May, the Ministry of Interior opened an investigation into allegations that a police officer beat five Roma children who had briefly left an area under mandatory quarantine in the village of Krompachy.

In January, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled in A.P. v. Slovakia in favour of a Roma boy who was subjected to ill-treatment by police in 2015 and criticized the authorities’ failure to effectively investigate his complaint. In March, the ECtHR formally requested a response from Slovakia regarding the alleged ill-treatment of six Roma boys in a police station in the city of Košice in 2009 (M.B. & Others v. Slovakia).

In September, the ECtHR ruled in R.R. & R.D. v. Slovakia that two Roma residents of the settlement of Moldava nad Bodvou had been subjected to inhuman treatment during a police operation in June 2013 in which over 30 people had been injured. The ECtHR also found that the authorities had violated the prohibition on discrimination by failing to investigate alleged discrimination in the planning of the operation.

RIGHTS OF WOMEN AND GIRLS

Violations of women’s rights, often under the guise of protecting religious or traditional values, increased.

Although Slovakia remains a signatory to the Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, parliament has refused to ratify it and in February voted to reject the Convention altogether. Organizations working on violence against women reported an increase in domestic violence following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Public Defender of Human Rights expressed concerns regarding women’s access to safe and timely sexual and reproductive health care during the pandemic. Some health care providers suspended abortions, referring to a government requirement to postpone nonessential operations in response to COVID-19.

In October, parliament rejected a bill that would have imposed new barriers on access to abortion, and thereby endangered the health and wellbeing of women and girls.

1. Stigmatizing quarantines of Roma settlements in Slovakia and

Bulgaria (EUR 01/2156/2020)

SLOVENIA

Republic of Slovenia Head of state: Borut Pahor Head of government: Janez Janša (replaced Marjan Šarec in March)

Asylum-seekers were denied access to asylum; refugees and migrants were forcibly returned to Croatia. The COVID-19 pandemic severely affected care home residents who accounted for most deaths. Freedom of peaceful assembly was under threat.

RIGHTS OF REFUGEES AND ASYLUMSEEKERS

Asylum-seekers irregularly entering the country continued to be denied access to asylum and were forcibly returned, frequently in groups, to neighbouring Croatia. Such collective expulsions were against the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits states from returning individuals to a country where there is real risk of serious human rights violations. In November, the Ombudsman’s Office criticized the treatment of hundreds of asylum-seekers by the authorities. The asylum-seekers were detained under inhumane conditions in the Centre for Foreigners in Postojna, some before being deported to Croatia. There were reports of widespread violence and abuse by Croatian police.

The Administrative Court ruled in December that the authorities violated the right of a Cameroonian national to seek asylum when he was deported without procedure to Croatia and subsequently to Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Court found the authorities ignored the man’s asylum request and failed to provide translation, legal assistance or to assess the risk of refoulement, in violation of domestic and EU law.

In August, the Supreme Court ruled that the accelerated returns of irregularly entering migrants and asylum-seekers to Croatia, based on a bilateral agreement between the two countries from 2006, were lawful. The case was referred to the Constitutional Court.

In December, the government proposed to Parliament changes to the Law on Foreigners and the Law on International Protection which would further restrict asylum-seekers’, refugees’ and migrants’ access to protection.

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS

The definition of rape in the Criminal Code remained based on the use of force, threat of force or coercion, rather than consent, contrary to international human rights law and standards. As part of a wider reform of the Criminal Code, the Ministry of Justice proposed to remove use of force as a condition for the commission of offence. However, the proposal does not fully rely on the absence of consent.

RIGHT TO HEALTH

The COVID-19 pandemic severely affected care home residents, accounting for almost 60% of all COVID-19 deaths. The Ministry of Health was criticized during the first wave over deciding not to hospitalize care home residents and instead rely on an advance medical assessment, allegedly conducted in the care home without patients’ knowledge or consent, and which may have deprived some people of hospital care. Instead, care homes had to set up their own isolation units which lacked space, technical equipment and trained staff. Consequently, they did not adequately protect patients while risking exposing other residents and staff to infection.

In August, the Ministry of Health announced new draft legislation on long-term care for older people to address the issue of insufficient accommodation and care capacities for the growing elderly population.

DISCRIMINATION

Roma continued to face widespread discrimination, high levels of unemployment and social exclusion. Many continued living in segregated settlements in inadequate housing, lacking security of tenure and access to adequate water, electricity, sanitation and public transport.

In March, the European Court of Human Rights, in a majority decision which largely ignored the practical obstacles faced by Roma living in informal settlements to access basic services, ruled that Slovenia did not violate the rights of two Roma families by failing to ensure access to water and sanitation.1 The families claimed their communities were consistently denied access to a public water supply based on living in informal settlements. The ruling became final in September after a referral to the Court’s Grand Chamber was rejected.