The Scars of the Erasure_web

Erasure_4a 10.1.11 20:29 Page 85THE ERASURE AS A VIOLATION OF LEGALLY PROTECTED HUMAN RIGHTS 85French Revolution: “liberty – equality – fraternity” (Vasak 1997), with the civiland political rights involving primarily freedom of individuals, the economic, socialand cultural rights based on the principle of equality of all people withoutdiscrimination, and the rights of the third generation being founded on the guidingprinciple of fraternity.We will now proceed to analyze to what extent individual human rights,which should be enjoyed by all residents, are respected in Slovenia, which is asignatory to the international documents mentioned above. Each subsection beginswith the presentation of the international provisions protecting a specificright, followed by the explanation of the meaning or content of that right, andthe description of concrete situations in which the erased people found themselves,as a group, or a specific section of that group or as individuals. Thesesituations will be amply illustrated with extracts from interviews conducted in2007, 2008 and 2009 as part of the Peace Institute’s research project entitled“The Erased People of Slovenia – A Challenge for the Young Nation-State.” Eachsubsection ends with a conclusion in the form of a legal judgment (a subsumptionof the situation under the legal norm), indicating whether the treatment oferased residents in a concrete situation involved a violation of the human rightsdiscussed in that section.When examining legal regulations in order to establish whether these wereviolated, the main question to be considered is the date of their coming into effectin Slovenia. Both international covenants mentioned above were ratified andsigned by the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). Slovenia, as anindependent state, accepted these documents through the succession declarations,i.e. ICCPR on 25 June 1991 and the ICESCR on 6 June 1992. SFRY alsosigned and ratified the ECHR, and Slovenia joined it on 13 June 1994. The erasuretook place on 26 February 1992, but it is important to note that its consequenceshave endured for years and that resulting damage may similarly occuryears after the erasure. It is obvious from the dates above that at the time of theerasure only the ICCPR was binding on Slovenia, while the ICESCR and ECHRcame into effect after the date of erasure. Accordingly, these two documentscan be used as references only when judging the long-term consequences of theerasure and various measures taken by successive governments in office followingthe erasure, but not as a legal reference when discussing the act of erasureitself. 66 It is also a key thesis in the case brought before the European Court of Human Rights by the law firm Studio LanaLagostena Bassi on 4 July 2006 on behalf of eleven erased residents of Slovenia. The case is known as Kurić andOthers vs. Slovenia.