Slovakia’s President has vetoed the amendments to the country’s gambling act – pumping the brakes on reform within the country’s framework.
President Peter Pellegrini recommended not adopting the bill in its entirety, as it does not adequately address consumer protection concerns and it “doesn’t guarantee that the will of citizens will be fully respected”.
The News Agency of the Slovak Republic (TASR) has stated that Pellegrini sent the amendments back to parliament to be debated again, as he believes they would allow casinos to “operate even in municipalities that explicitly reject them on the basis of general binding regulations of their local councils”.
Amendments to the gambling act were approved by 71 of the 78 MPs present for the vote last month, but MPs for the coalition Slovak National Party abstained from the vote and opposition MPs didn’t participate.
TASR stated that the tabled bill by the Tourism and Sport Ministry addressed the need to increase state budget revenues via regulating the amount of gambling levies and adjusting the law resulting from its application in practice. National lottery Tipos would have also been able to take over valid casino licences and continue to operate them.
MPs approved several coalition amendments in the final vote, including introducing the obligation to submit a statement from the town or municipality agreeing to the casino’s continued presence once the licence is transferred to Tipos, with operations only taking place in the same municipality.
However, Pellegrini considered the amendments to be “unacceptable interference in the constitutional right to territorial self-government, the autonomy of municipalities, towns and their exercise of public authority, including respect for the principle of legal certainty”.
The agency added that the President believes the original objective of the law wasn’t removed by the approved wording, “which is to invalidate the autonomous decisions of local authorities and to overturn the already expressed sovereign will of the inhabitants of towns and villages”.
Pellegrini stated: “The sovereign holder of power in Slovakia is the citizen. Citizens in many places in Slovakia, either directly in local referendums or through their elected representatives, have made it clear that they don’t want gambling in their village or town.
“The approved law, despite its amendments in Parliament, doesn’t guarantee that the will of citizens will be fully respected.”
