The Constitution of Slovakia, officially the Constitution of the Slovak Republic, is the current constitution of Slovakia. It was passed by the Slovak National Council on 1 September 1992 and signed on 3 September 1992 in the Knights Hall of the Bratislava Castle. The constitution went to effect on 1 October 1992 (1 January 1993 in some parts). The day of constitution is remembered as Constitution Day on 1 September.

History

In 1969, Czechoslovakia became a federation with the Czech Socialist Republic and Slovak Socialist Republic as its constituent parts. This happened as a result of Prague Spring reforms, which was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia as a communist state after World War II. However, in 1969, the normalization period started and while formally the federation was preserved, power was again centralized. The 1968 constitutional law "On the Czecho-Slovak Federation" (No. 143/1968, Art. 142) stipulated that after passing the new federal constitution, both republics would adopt their own constitutions, but this was never implemented. First works on a Slovak constitution started right after the Velvet revolution in 1990. In March 1990, a group of legal experts formed the Plank Committee, led by Professor Karol Plank. This included professionals from the legal field, political figures and prominent professors of law. The complexity of the task were not limited to: Together, said people prepared the first and eventually the final draft of the Slovak Constitution. The only problem with this remains that none of them are capable of fairly discerning who did what portion of the work on the final version of the Slovak Constitution, despite any of them being rarely mentioned whilst speaking of the Constitution itself. The Slovak Constitution was prepared quickly in 1992, with many formulations taken directly from the Czechoslovak Constitution of 1920 and being marked by a compromise with socialism, while also taking several examples from constitutions of Western countries. According to Slovak lawyer Ján Drgonec, many parts of the constitution are hard if not impossible to execute.

Overview

The text of the Constitution is divided into the preamble and nine parts, with most being divided into chapters, which are also divided into 156 articles but do not need to be divided further into paragraphs and/or letters.

Amendments

Three fifths of the votes in the parliament are necessary to supplement and/or amend the Constitution. It has been amended several times. In June 2023, The Slovakian parliament voted with the support of 111 of 150 MPs to put the right to use Cash in the Constitution of Slovakia. The amendment was proposed by We Are Family.