In recent days, several local authorities, offices and institutions in South Slovakia received a letter from the Department of State Language of the Ministry of Culture. The Department called for avoiding alleged infringements: it objected to certain offices’ signs indicating the name of towns in Hungarian. The Department of State Language of the Ministry of Culture has sent warning letters to the Komárno District Authority and the Museum of Danube in Komárno over the use of the Hungarian language. Nevertheless, the Department has oddly interpreted the relevant law. However, public authorities in such settlements are not merely entitled to be, but even shall be designated in the minority language (Hungarian) under the Law on Use of Languages of National Minorities.
The response of László Bukovszky, Slovak Government’s Plenipotentiary for National Minority Affairs, was for the Department of State Language to abstain from blackmailing the institutions and interpreting the Law on Use of Languages of National Minorities. As the interpretation of laws lies within the power of government offices; these offices are responsible for the methodological and technical clarification of laws. The Office of the Commissioner for Minority Affairs has so far received 6 complaints from the institutions concerned, and they have been provided clarification on how to use the minority language. László Bukovszky stated that he initiated a meeting with Marek Maďarič, Minister of Culture.
The Department of State Language has repeatedly received a lot of media attention: last year, for example, it instructed the town of Gabčíkovo to put an end to ‘unlawful state of affairs’, and has forbidden for the town to indicate the town name on the prospectus of the tourist ferry in Hungarian. It also complained that the names of Members featured on the website of the town were in conformity with Hungarian grammar rules.
In recent days, Péter Őry, President of the National Council of the Party of the Hungarian Community (SMK-MKP), drew attention to a similar case. Őry claimed that he, as Mayor of Štvrtok na Ostrove, receives a letter each year, in which the Department of State Language warns of the violation of the state language law. Most recently, he was warned of the minutes of a local government session held in July 2016: a line in brackets was in Hungarian in the Slovaklanguage text. ‘It feels rather tragicomic to be harassed for such trivial matters. While the state remains in constant breach of its obligations imposed on it by the law on the use of the languages of the national minorities’ Őry wrote.
(www.ujszo.com, 16 Sept 2017)
Minority Report / Bulletin on the Hungarian Community in Slovakia
