Scholarly record

THE RIGHT TO USE MOTHER TONGUE/NATIVE LANGUAGE BEFORE CIVIL COURTS IN THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC AFTER CIVIL LEGISLATION AMENDMENT

S. Ficova

Abstract

Less than a year after re-codification of civil procedural law, the first amendment to civil procedure, the Civil Litigation Code, Act 160/2015 Z.z., has been passed. The amendment applies to the right of the party to act before a court using his/her native language or the language the party can understand. The presenters of the legislative proposal substantiated the need to amend the law by reasons of its harmonization with the existing rules of the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages which is binding on the Slovak Republic. With reference to the Charter they sought to amend the partyВ’s right to act before a court by using the language he/she can understand and the right to make submissions and present evidence also in the language other than the official language, and to include the obligation of the court to provide for translation of documents and evidence at the costs of the State. The law was passed but not in the same form as drafted in the original legislative proposal. The subject matter of this paper is an analysis of the legislative amendment, on the one hand, and comparing the original legislative proposal with the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages, on the other hand. Its aim is also to show how the new law has affected the original right of the party to use his/her native language before a court, indicating also whether the presenters of the legislative proposal have been successful in achieving the aim intended by the adopted amendment.

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