At a hearing on 20 January 2025, the District Court in Prešov dismissed an anti-discrimination lawsuit alleging discrimination against a disadvantaged Roma child in access to education during the Covid-19 pandemic. The District Court, as the court of first instance, decided the case after the Court of Appeal overturned its first decision upholding the lawsuit and remanded the case back to the Court of First Instance for a re-determination of the lawsuit. The court of first instance, bound by the legal opinion of the Court of Appeal, dismissed the action this time. It found that the defendant State had not treated the applicant in a discriminatory manner. According to the Court, at a time of an emergency such as a pandemic of covid, the State sought to ensure the educational process for all children in the most reasonable way. These were exceptional circumstances in which the protection of public health came first. Free legal representation in the court proceedings was provided to the plaintiff by our NGO as part of its Strategic Litigation Programme in discrimination cases. The case highlights the disadvantages in access to digital technologies and the internet faced by some groups in Slovak society, which are of a wider systemic nature.

The decision is not final and the applicant plans to appeal against it. The case will thus be brought back to the Regional Court in Prešov.

Veronika Duždová, the plaintiff’s grandmother, commented on the court’s decision:

“I am disappointed with the court’s decision. I believe that the higher courts will give us the truth. My granddaughter was a first grader at the time. I still think that the state did not do enough to ensure that our Roma children could be properly educated during the covid pandemic. “

Commenting on the decision, Vanda Durbakova, counsel for the defendant, said:

“We will appeal against the district court’s ruling. The state simply failed at the time of the pandemic to take effective measures to remove the barriers to access to established distance education faced by Roma children from disadvantaged communities. We hope that the higher courts will accept our legal arguments and uphold the lawsuit.”

We want to thank everyone who supports our strategic litigation management, with special thanks to the Digital Freedom Fund (DFF) Foundation for their support.

We have issued a press release on the court’s decision, which you can read here.