If Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini (Smer-SD) has any doubts as to whether the Istanbul Convention belongs to Slovakia's system of values and legal framework, the Government is welcome to consult the issue with the Constitutional Court, President Zuzana Čaputová declared after her meeting with Pellegrini and Parliamentary Chair Andrej Danko (SNS) on Monday. The President pointed out that the Istanbul Convention hasn't been ratified by Slovakia and hence the country has no commitments stemming from it. This status quo has been in place since 2011. "There is no urgent reason to make it a salient issue only three weeks away from the parliamentary elections," Čaputová pointed out.
Speaker of Parliament Andrej Danko, who opposes the ratification on grounds of defending traditional family values, sees no reason for having the Constitutional Court look into the issue, as proposed by President Zuzana Čaputová. He believes that the head of state is playing a waiting game, hoping that the future government due to arise from the February 29th parliamentary election might ratify the Convention. The Slovak Parliament had already refused to sign the Convention earlier last year. The Istanbul Convention, passed by the Council of Europe in 2011, is the most comprehensive international agreement on combatting violence perpetrated against women. In effect since August 2014, it was signed by the EU in June 2017.
