Language Research

The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities signed on February 1, 1995, ratified on September 14, 1995 and enacted on February 1, 1998.

The Prime Ministers of Slovakia and Hungary signed a state treaty on good neighborly relations and friendly cooperation between the two countries in Paris on March 19, 1995. The treaty was ratified by the Hungarian Parliament on June 13, 1995 and by the Slovak National Council on March 26, 1996. Article 15 of the state treaty details the rights of the Slovak minority in Hungary and those of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia. It states that the persons belonging to minorities have the right to effectively participate at the national and, where appropriate, at the regional level in the decisions, which affect the minorities. They have the right to use freely their native-language in private and public life. They are further entitled to internal law and order and, in accordance with the international obligations assumed by both Contracting Parties, to use their native language in official contacts, including public administration and court proceedings. In the framework of the state education and instruction system, they have the right of discrimination-free access to the public mass media and to their own mass media. The Parties will create the conditions necessary for the minorities to preserve their material and architectural relics and memorials, which embody their cultural heritage, history and traditions.

The Treaty declares that the Contracting Parties will implement as binding legal norms four international documents on the protection of minorities:

1) The Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities adopted by the Council of Europe and signed by the Contracting Parties on February 1, 1995.

2) The document adopted on June 29, 1990 by the Copenhagen meeting of the Conference on European Security and Cooperation dealing with human dimensions.

3) Declaration No. 47/135 adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on the rights of people belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities.

4) Recommendation No.1201 (1993) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on the respect of individual human and civil rights, including the rights of persons belonging to national minorities.

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Updated (January 2001)

On June 19, 2001, the Slovakian Parliament has ratified the European Charter on Regional or Minority Languages of the Council of Europe (Strasburg, 1992).

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