The leader of the team tasked by the government's Office for
Religious Communities to prepare an initial draft of Slovenia's new law on
religion has insisted he and his team will be neutral in the way they draw up the
draft bill. "The personal faith of the team members and the team leader
will have no impact on their approach to completing the task," Professor
Lovro Sturm, director of the Institute of Human Rights and a professor of the
law school of the University of Ljubljana, told Forum 18 News Service from the
capital Ljubljana on 21 September. But some minority faiths have claimed that
Sturm's Catholic faith – and particularly his membership of the Sovereign
Military Order of Malta, a Catholic charitable order – will mean that the draft
law he proposes might privilege the Catholic Church to the detriment of other
faiths.
Most critical of the choice of Professor Sturm is Gelong Shenphen, abbot of the
Dharmaling Buddhist community, who was especially suspicious of his membership
of the Order of Malta. "This is well known over Slovenia for its
'integrism' and support for the Catholic Church," he told Forum 18 from
Ljubljana on 28 August.
But also concerned is Zmago Godina, president of the Slovenian Conference of
the Seventh Day Adventists. "I am a little bit worried because of his
position and ties to the Catholic Church," he told Forum 18 on 22
September. "Lovro Sturm is very respected from a legal perspective, but
the Order of Malta is tied to the interests of the Catholic Church."
Godina was keen to stress that he does not presume that the law will therefore
be biased. "There is a little bit of fear that this might influence his
writing of the new law, but I am not saying it necessarily will. Yet it remains
a danger."
Godina said his Adventist Church is "very much interested in" the new
law. "We want the new law explicitly to assure the equality of all
religious communities, without preferences for any on the basis of their size
or tradition. This is our major concern."
Other minorities are less worried by the choice of Professor Sturm. "I
know him," Geza Ernisa, bishop of the Augsburg Lutheran Church, told Forum
18 from Moravske Toplice in north eastern Slovenia on 22 September.
"Although he is a devout Catholic I believe he will draft a fairly neutral
law, otherwise it won't be accepted in parliament or by the religious
minorities. If there is anything in it that disadvantages minorities, we will
protest."
Bishop Ernisa too stressed that his Church – which has 20,000 members in 13
communities – is simply seeking equality for all faiths. "Our constitution
guarantees the equality of all religious communities. But unfortunately, as in
other Central European states where the Catholic Church is in a majority, this
is not so in practice."
Orthodox representatives told Forum 18 they had no major concerns. Fr Peran
Boskovic of the 45,000-strong Serbian Orthodox community and Trajce Andonov,
leader of the 5,000-strong Macedonian Orthodox community, said that they had no
problems at present and that all their communities wished to see was that all
faiths would be included equally in the new law.
At present, religious life is governed by the religion law dating back to 1976,
when Slovenia was part of the then Yugoslavia. Long-running plans to update
this law resulted in a draft being presented to parliament in 1998, but the
government later withdrew it. The government then began signing agreements with
individual religious communities – in 1999 with the Catholic Bishops'
Conference and in 2000 with the Lutheran Church of the Augsburg Confession.
Other bilateral agreements – such as with the Serbian Orthodox Church, the
Pentecostals, the Jews and the Muslims - have been discussed but not adopted.
The Vatican and the Slovenian government initialled an agreement regulating the
position of the Catholic Church in December 2001, but much controversy
surrounds this. Minority faiths have complained that the Catholic Church –
which claims the allegiance of about two thirds of the population – is seeking
to enshrine in law a privileged status.
Sturm told Forum 18 that his Ljubljana-based institute was chosen in July out
of three legal research institutes "as the optimal choice considering the
value of the project and the professional references". He said the work –
which is funded by the Office for Religious Communities - is being carried out
in a team of five members which he leads. All members of the team, which
includes two university professors, have experience and publications in the
field, he added.
"The guiding principles of the research are standard ones, i.e. the
analysis and the evaluation of the existing legal regulation, a comparative
survey of the legal regulation in the countries of the European Union and draft
elaboration of the possible new legal regulation." Sturm said his proposed
bill will be forwarded to the Office for Religious Communities by the end of
December.
Bozena Rudolf of the Office for Religious Communities told Forum 18 on 28
August that once a draft of the new religion law is prepared it will be
discussed within the government before being presented to parliament. She gave
no timetable.
Minority faiths have complained of denial of rights in recent years. Those
which failed to gain registration with the Office for Religious Communities by
1999 saw their registration applications languish as the office director, Drago
Cepar, refused to register any new religious communities after taking office in
2000, claiming that the law defining what is and is not a religious community
is unclear.
However, the deadlock was broken in August of this year when he finally began
registering new communities after intense political and media pressure. The
Protestant Calvary Chapel in Celje, the Dharmaling Tibetan Buddhist association
and the Hindu community were the first to be registered (see F18News 2
September 2003). The fourth to gain registration since Cepar reversed his
policy is the Christian Outreach Centre in Ljubljana. Its pastor, Klemen Vidic,
said the church received registration on 12 September. "We can now
function as a religious institution," he told Forum 18 three days later,
"and we can formally employ a pastor."
The Muslim community has complained that for decades it has been unable to
build any purpose-built mosques, despite having tens of thousands of adherents
across the country. Muslim leader Mufti Osman Djogic told Forum 18 that the
community in Ljubljana has been trying to build a mosque for three decades, but
has encountered widespread political and popular opposition to any site it
proposes. The Muslims are forced to meet in cramped premises converted from
private homes.