The Scars of the Erasure_web

Erasure_4a 10.1.11 20:29 Page 112112 THE SCARS OF THE ERASUREfrage and shall be held by secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of thewill of the electors;” and the “right of access, on general terms of equality, topublic service in one’s country.” (ICCPR , Article 25)According to the Slovenian legislation, i.e., Article 5 of the Local ElectionsAct, persons with permanent residence in Slovenia have the right to vote in localelections to district and municipal councils. The erased persons could thereforehave exercised this right if they had not been erased. This is still another caseof chain reasoning, since erased persons were not prevented from exercisingtheir voting right through a direct, either active or passive action of the state, butthey did not have an opportunity to exercise this right because they were deprivedof legal status. It is clear that, once erased, a person could not exercise this rightbecause he/she didn’t have status (a direct reason) and not because he/shewas erased (indirect reason). This again brings us to the practice to which authoritiesresort when they do not want to directly prevent someone from exerci -sing a specific right, but do it indirectly instead, in an apparently lawful manner,by depriving a person of his/her status. And last but not least, it is also importantto remember that all those who were erased had previously had the right to voteat the referendum on the independence of Slovenia. At that time, their participationin the conduct of public affairs was still desirable, but not also later, afterthe erasure.3.14 The right to marry and to found a familyThe right to marry and the right to found a family are protected by Article12 of the ECHR, which states that men and women of “marriageable age” havethe right to marry and found a family in accordance with national laws that governthe exercising of this right. The rights are also protected by Article 16 of theUDHR, which states that “men and women of full age, without any limitation dueto race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. Theyare entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.”This provision also defines that the family, as the natural and fundamental unitof society, is entitled to protection by society and the state.The part of this provision significant for the erased people is the one protectingthe right to marry, because during the period when they had no status orvalid documents, they were generally not able to marry in Slovenia. As a matterof fact, during the wars in former Yugoslavia, the erased people did not haveproblem only with status as such, but they could not obtain their birth certificates,passports or certificates confirming citizenship. They had to apply forthese in their supposed countries of origin, although in some cases these werenot their real countries of origin (e.g., Bosnia-Herzegovina). However, it was notalways possible because of the armed conflict.