In the presentation of standpoints of parliamentary groups, the Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka – SDS) and the New Slovenia party (Nova Slovenija – NSi) announced their opposition to the decision, while the parties of the coalition said that a referendum on the Family Code is not constitutionally permissible. The Constitutional Court has ruled that, until the legislation is amended, marriage is a union of two persons, and that same-sex and heterosexual couples are subject to the same rules for adopting children, the Social Democrats said (Socialni demokrati – SD). The SDS party assessed that the amendments went beyond the provisions of the decision of the Constitutional Court. According to the Declaration and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the rights of the child must come first in decision-making, which had been forgotten in the issue at hand. The new amendments to the Family Code also change provisions that have not been found to be unconstitutional, according to the NSi party. If the National Assembly amends the provisions that were not found to be unconstitutional, then the referendum should be admissible, they believe.
Aleš Primc, President of the Movement for Children and Families, said that the Constitutional Court had already ruled in 2015 that the referendum on the Family Code was admissible. “And the Constitutional Court cannot simply change its position every few years. And the other thing is that we have very serious concerns about the decision of the Constitutional Court; these decisions were made by six
Constitutional Court judges, of which at least two should recuse themselves from the decision-making.”
Namely, judge Katja Šugman Stubbs took part in a commercial for the LGBTQ+ lobby’s referendum campaign as an activist, and the brother of the Constitutional Court judge Rok Čeferin, Aleksander Čeferin, also took part in that same commercial. These two should be recused from the decision-making process in this matter, so it is unacceptable and contrary to the standards of fair trial and the appearance of impartiality that two judges who were involved in the campaign are now ruling as Constitutional Court judges in the same case, Primc believes.
The coalition would expand the Constitutional Court’s ruling The Constitutional Court has not ruled on as broad a subject as the coalition now wants to make it seem. “In one decision, the Constitutional Court said that the National Assembly must pass a law allowing two people of the same sex to marry; in another decision, they said that adoption should be allowed for same-sex couples. However, the law that the coalition wants to adopt greatly expands on the regulation of the decision of the Constitutional Court. In fact, the law that has been passed stipulates that not only can same-sex couples get married, but also any of the hundreds of genders that the LGBTQ+ claim to exist,” Primc is concerned.
Schools would teach children how to change their gender “There is also a law on self-determination of sex being prepared, where every citizen will be able to go to the administrative unit and say that he or she will be the 102nd sex and will choose his or her own sex. All these people would also be able to adopt a child. The court has not even spoken on this. All of them could decide on the birth of children. Under the Family Code, the state is obliged to train spouses for a harmonious partnership – which includes gender reassignment,” Primc said, adding that Article 12 of the Code requires the state to facilitate this kind of preparation through the education and healthcare systems. “This is unsustainable, we cannot allow our children to be taught in schools and kindergartens how to change their genders. In countries where they have passed such a law, this is exactly what is happening.” Children are first brainwashed into thinking that they are not the right sex. Then they are psychologically prepared to change their sex, they are put on hormone therapy, breast growth and other hormonal changes are halted, and some even demand gender reassignment surgery; even men demand to have wombs inserted, Primc says of stories from abroad.
The Movement for Children and Families will file a request for the annulment of this decision on Friday, and the Constitutional Court then has 30 days to do so. If they decide that the referendum is inadmissible, the Movement will start collecting signatures for it after the Christmas-New Year holidays.
The Movement has also joined the referendum campaign of “Against Three Times.” These are very different laws and subjects, and there are several reasons why we should be against their adoption, Primc said. You can find out more about this on the show “Topic of the Day” (“Tema dneva”) on Nova24TV.
Sara Kovač
