A/HRC/40/64/Add.1 F. The deaf minority and sign language 50. The Special Rapporteur held a meeting in Ljubljana with representatives of the deaf linguistic minority, who recalled that sign language had long been used and recognized in Slovenia, going as far back as 1840 in one of the first schools for the deaf in AustroHungary. The Use of Slovenian Sign Language Act (2002) was one of the earliest general frameworks in Europe for the use of sign language by public authorities. The Special Rapporteur was informed about the two schools of members of the deaf minority in Ljubljana and Maribor, and that the court interpretation and other significant services in sign language and Braille were guaranteed by law and in a number of programmes. He was, however, surprised to learn that sign language was not actually used to any significant degree in teaching in these schools, and that some public authorities viewed sign language as a support system for persons with special needs rather than an “actual” or “real” language with its own culture. Although relevant disaggregated data are lacking, the Special Rapporteur did learn of a study on education conducted in 2006, which showed that, while 11 per cent of the general population (and 17.3 per cent of those who were blind) held a university degree, only 0.9 per cent of the deaf community did. One suggestion was that this was linked to the inability or refusal to teach in Slovenia in the language of the deaf community, sign language, and the apparent continuing tendency of teaching mainly orally in vocalization. 51. There is therefore resistance to recognizing sign language as an actual language for persons who belong to a community. While a growing number of States around the world recognize sign language as an official language, Slovenia does not, despite legislation providing for its use in a number of contexts. It may also explain why sign language does not feature in the four-year national language policy plan as a full-fledged language. G. The “erased” and minorities of the former Yugoslavia 52. On 26 February 1992, 1 per cent of the population of Slovenia (25,671 people) were removed (and now referred to as izbrisani, the “erased”) from its registry of permanent residents. This was the result of a new law according to which citizens of the former Yugoslav republics who were not citizens of Slovenia had to meet three requirements in order to acquire Slovenian citizenship, including applying for citizenship within six months of the entry into force of the Citizenship Act (1991). Those who failed to meet any requirement by the deadline were deleted from the register of permanent residents, thereby losing their legal status and, by extension, their right to remain in Slovenia. 53. The situation of the “erased” – who for the most part are members of various ethnic, religious or linguistic communities of the former Yugoslavia – is still unsettled. It is also a human rights issue in the sense that nearly all of those removed from the official residence registry of Slovenia in 1992 belonged to minorities. The consequences, from a human rights viewpoint, were discriminatory, and deprived thousands of people of a number of economic, social, civil and political rights, leaving many of them on the margins of society. One of those persons described to the Special Rapporteur how she could not initially buy or subsequently rent the apartment in which she had been living because she was not considered a citizen or permanent resident, how she ended up losing her livelihood and essentially had to live in poverty for years. While half of these people would eventually regain their residency status, or in some cases succeeded in acquiring citizenship after decades of litigation, the situation of perhaps 10,000 who mainly live outside Slovenia is unclear. Compensation is still being fought over despite the judgments made by the European Court of Human Rights (which in 2016 ruled that the government compensation scheme was appropriate in the case of Anastasov and Others v. Slovenia), and a decision by the Constitutional Court in April 2018 ruling against the limitations for those who filed claims for damages in judicial processes on the amount of compensation awarded. 54. The continuing predicament of the “erased”, and particularly of those few who still live in Slovenia without any legal status, is a blot on the image of the State. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, among others, have expressed their concern at this matter, including 12