Czech Greens want to override Klaus's veto of discrimination bill

The Czech junior ruling Green Party wants the government coalition parties to discuss the way of overriding President Vaclav Klaus’s veto of the anti-discrimination bill today.

Greens chairman Martin Bursik and Dzamila Stehlikova (Greens), minister for human rights and minorities, said in their press release that Klaus’s veto is an attack on the government policy and its pro-European orientation.

The anti-discrimination law is required by the European Union.

European commissioner for equal opportunities Vladimir Spidla said Czech citizens felt discrimination for many reasons and the overwhelming majority of them wanted to increase anti-discrimination protection.

Spidla said the vetoed law brought the protection and was "good and necessary."

Spidla said the law had to be passed on account of the Czech Republic’s obligations within the EU. If it were not passed, the Czech Republic would be punished, he added.

"Agreements must be observed and fulfilled," Spidla told journalists.

"The vetoing of the bill returns us a large step back within European integration and throws a shadow on our effort to cooperate within the EU," Bursik and Stehlikova write in their joint statement.

They write that the Czech Republic faces EU sanctions over the absence of the law, and that Czech citizens have a lower standard of protection against discrimination than other EU citizens.

The Czech Republic should have passed the bill before it entered the EU in 2004 and it is the sole of the 27 EU member states not to have it.

Stehlikova told CTK today that the Czech Republic had not been punished for the absence of the law only thanks to that the bill was already in parliament and was on its good path to approval.

In the joint press release with Bursik, she said the law is a priority of the government and the promise to pass it is part of the government coalition agreement.

The bill was passed by the votes of 111 out of 170 deputies present. Some rightist deputies, however, echo the opinion of Klaus, honorary chairman of the senior ruling Civic Democrats (ODS), that it is redundant if not right detrimental, and they say it is an evil forced on Czechs by the EU.

The left says the anti-discrimination law is important, but that the government submitted a toothless bill that does not provide sufficient protection from discrimination.

That is why a number of Social Democrat deputies did not support it.

Social Democrat CSSD leader Jiri Paroubek said Klaus’s decision was erroneous and mercilessly harmed the people with health problems.

"I will struggle to have the CSSD support the legislation again," Paroubek said in a press release.

The Communists voted against the law as they had not managed to have the lustration laws cancelled within its framework.

The lustration laws bar some Communist-era functionaries from access to senior posts in the civil service.

"He has made me happy," Communist deputy Zuzka Bebarova-Rujbrova told CTK.

She said the vetoed law was only a step toward fulfilling the EU requirements, not a reduction of discrimination in the Czech Republic, she added.

Klaus was also praised by the extreme rightist National Party.

"We congratulate Klaus on the step and thank him for his political and human bravery," the extra-parliamentary party said on its webpage.