“Amendments to the National Public Education Act are not in accordance with international human rights standards”, the Venice Commission said in an opinion published late yesterday. On the contrary, the Council of Europe’s constitutional law experts add, “the amendments contribute to creating a ‘threatening environment’, where LGBTQI children can be subject to health-related risks, bullying and harassment”.
Requested by the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the opinion focuses on the amendments to Law LXXIX adopted in June.
These prohibit the portrayal and promotion of a gender identity different from that at birth, sex reassignment and homosexuality in both the audiovisual media and in advertising content or public education.
The amended law, which was supposed to combat paedophilia, has been renamed the “homophobic law” in public opinion and is strongly opposed.
After analysis, the Venice Commission denounces the haste with which these amendments were adopted and their incompatibility with the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, which recognises gender identity as a component of personal identity falling within the right to privacy.
These amendments “leave room for one-sided and biased teaching, opening the door to stigmatisation and discrimination of LGBTQI persons”, the opinion concludes. They “contribute to forming ideologically motivated ‘parallel societies’, against which minorities are discriminated”.
Link to the Venice Commission Opinion: https://bit.ly/3yq5YzV (VL)