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The Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic During the Emergencies Cover

The Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic During the Emergencies

By: Kamil Baraník  
Open Access
|Jun 2023

Abstract

Most constitutional systems count with the eventualities of unexpected circumstances threatening the constitutional order. These constitutions allow a constitutional regime’s partial or complete transformation into a constitutional emergency. Before 2020, Slovakia had almost no experience with such situations. The paper aspires to unveil a line of Slovak emergency constitutional considerations through the lenses of the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic. For that reason, the article critically analyses the methodological approach of the Slovak Constitutional Court towards the declaration of emergencies. The COVID pandemic brought the first opportunity to the Constitutional Court to review the unilateral power of the government to declare one of the constitutional emergencies, namely the state of crisis. The Constitutional Court did not opt for an active intervention with the governmental powers. Interestingly, it intervened assertively with the power to fight the pandemic when the state of crisis was over. The paper argues that the results of this recent constitutional experience remain methodologically unpersuasive and do not represent a helpful guide for the future.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/danb-2023-0007 | Journal eISSN: 1804-8285 | Journal ISSN: 1804-6746
Language: English
Page range: 107 - 118
Published on: Jun 30, 2023
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 4 issues per year

© 2023 Kamil Baraník, published by European Association Comenius - EACO
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.