President of the Slovak Republic Peter Pellegrini will not declare a referendum on lifting sanctions against Russia. He announced this during a press statement on Wednesday (June 4). At the same time, he called on the government to amend the outdated law on referendums, warning that without legislative change, the law can be abused.
The head of state explained that the petition calling for a referendum does not meet all the required conditions. “After thoroughly reviewing whether the submitted petition meets the requirements, I must publicly declare today that a referendum with the proposed question cannot be announced,” said the president.
President Pellegrini described the proposal as ambiguous, vague, unpredictable, and practically unenforceable. According to him, the question contains several unclear elements. The petition proposed the referendum question as follows: Do you agree that the Slovak Republic should not apply sanctions against the Russian Federation that harm Slovak citizens, self-employed individuals, and entrepreneurs?
Pellegrini sees ambiguity already in the term “Slovak Republic.” It is unclear whether this refers only to state authorities or also to municipalities, regional governments, entrepreneurs, and other citizens. “The wording of this part of the question does not provide a sufficient answer to who is or is not the executing entity,” the head of state explained.
He identified a second ambiguity in the phrase “sanctions against the Russian Federation.” It is unclear whether this refers only to Russian state authorities or also to its citizens, for example.
“And finally, the third part of the question—who and on what basis can definitively determine which sanctions harm Slovak citizens, self-employed individuals, and entrepreneurs? Which authority and under what law would assess this? Since no standard exists that could be used to assess the harmfulness of sanctions, such a law would be simply unenforceable,” declared Peter Pellegrini.
Pellegrini also pointed out that the Office of the President has only limited powers when verifying signatures on petition sheets for calling a referendum. It can only check whether the sheet is correctly signed, in the signer's own hand, and includes all necessary information.
The president expressed concern about the potential abuse of artificial intelligence and publicly available databases. He believes that, with their help, anyone could submit a seemingly credible number of signatures for any referendum within a few weeks.
“It would again be a list of signatures whose authenticity the president is not authorized to verify. Therefore, I strongly urge the government and state authorities that unless the state changes these rules—which, by the way, date back to 1990—it will not be possible now or in the future to investigate serious suspicions about the authenticity of signatures,” Pellegrini stated.
Source: STVR
