BRATISLAVA, Oct 15 — Slovakian lawyers Ivan Novotny and Metod Spacek got married in Austria in 2020, but their home country refused to register their marriage—a decision they are now challenging in court.

Novotny, 31, and Spacek, 51, say nationalist Prime Minister Robert Fico’s government is violating an EU court ruling that all bloc members must recognise a same-sex marriage recorded in another member.

They are challenging the Slovakian decision in court in the central European country, where Fico’s government has tightened LGBTQ rights and insists national law takes precedence over EU law.

“We don’t want to feel like second?class citizens,” Novotny told AFP in an interview.