Delays in Appointment to Slovak Constitutional Court

The Constitutional Court of Slovakia has been operating without a judge for one year and seven months following Judge Jana Laššáková’s resignation in September 2023.[1] This prolonged vacancy raises concerns about the Court’s ability to operate effectively and uphold its constitutional duties. While the other 12 judges, especially the President of the Court, have been taking on more work to compensate for the vacancy, this situation is unsustainable in the long run.

In Slovakia, the appointment of a new judge to the Constitutional Court is a two-step process: Parliament selects a candidate, and the President makes the final appointment. However, this process has stalled at the initial stage. During this parliamentary term, three selection rounds have taken place—all unsuccessful. In the first round, five candidates were proposed, but none received the required 90 votes (a simple majority in the repeat vote). The second round saw just one candidate, who failed to gain sufficient support. The ruling coalition has yet to explain why it has been unable or unwilling to nominate a suitable candidate.

Chart of the Day: Changes in the Population Size of Slovak Judges over a Decade

I recently thought about how much of constitutional law is ebb and flow, action and reaction. Which is why today I decided to analyse a graph that I have had in my desk drawer for a while. See the waterfall graph of the Slovak judges’ population size between 2011 and 2025 (Figure 1). The graph visually shows staffing shifts in the court system as increases and decreases from the original value. The initial value in the graph is 0, based on the fact that I could not get the exact number of judges in January 2011, but it could be any value. What is important is the pattern created by adding and subtracting from judges’ population over time, and as you can see ebbs and flows. 

The number of judges in Slovakia is affected yearly by four specific events: the appointment of new judges (which adds to the pool), the resignation of retiring judges, their removal, and death (all of which reduce the population). The Ministry of Justice reports each of these events under the “Change Notices” section on its webpage, and it has done so since 2011. 

Controversial NGO Law Passes through the Slovak Parliament

In April, the Slovak Parliament passed a controversial piece of legislation meant to curb the work and life of NGOs and other civil society organisations.[1] Ostensibly to make their activity more transparent, but in reality, to show force.[2] The ruling coalition made several moves to limit the influence of NGOs and thus stifle public scrutiny of the executive.

Slovakia has a rich history of social movements and a strong civic sector dating back to the early years of the Republic and even before that, the Velvet Revolution.[3] Last year, it was reported that there were approximately 17,000 different non-governmental organisations and groups active in the country.[4] However, Robert Fico’s governments gradually began to view NGOs and civil society organisations antagonistically as potential sources of illegitimate influence and political opposition. As such, they sought to repress them.

We could already see early signs of this in 2018, the year in which the large-scale anti-government protests, following the murder of journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová, resulted in PM Fico’s resignation and the collapse of his Cabinet. Fico, at the time, suggested that the protests were organised by NGOs controlled by George Soros—a populist right-wing trope that has been recurring in his speeches even today. He floated the idea of curbing the influence of NGOs briefly before resigning in shame.[5] Fico has been back in power since 2023[6] and seems inclined to move Slovakia more to the right, towards the Hungarian model of illiberal democracy.[7] 

New Code of Conduct for High-Ranking Public Officials in Slovakia?

The Slovak government has introduced a new Code of Conduct for high-ranking public officials.[1] The proposal is not yet effective, but it is nearing the end of the interdepartmental review process, during which various government bodies, NGOs, and the public can provide comments.[2] The government is now considering the submitted comments to determine which ones must be implemented to improve the proposal. If critical comments are impossible to implement, it may even change course by scrapping it altogether.

While the adoption of ethics codes is generally a welcome development in terms of improving the quality of the executive and public service, this particular proposal has attracted criticism for three reasons: it unduly concentrates power under the PM withouth a legal basis, restricts the freedom of association of civil servants and top officials with NGOs, and also highlights the government’s own ethical misgivings. On the last point, as I have written on this blog, it was recently revealed that the Defence Minister in Fico’s Cabinet failed to declare a seaside villa owned by his wife in Croatia, which led to a debate about ethics in government and transparency.[3] 

Defence Minister’s Missing Asset Declaration

On the 13th of March, a Slovak newspaper published an investigative article mapping the holiday homes of politicians, influential figures, and oligarchs in a remote Croatian seaside village. It was revealed that the Defence Minister in Fico’s Cabinet and his right-hand man, Rober Kaliňák, had a villa in the destination. Asked about a specific piece of property, he openly admitted to the journalists: 

More than six years ago, my wife purchased the property in question from an elderly Croatian family for €296,000. In fact, it is not a villa, but two apartments. The property is more than 50 years old, so it has undergone renovation. [1]

The point of the article was not necessarily to question the ownership of Kaliňáks’ holiday home. It is known that Kaliňák is a relatively wealthy politician and business owner, but rather the curious fact that the property neighbours other prominent lawyers and lobbyists. On the same day the story broke, however, it became clear that this was a bigger issue than all of the initially involved expected. Within a few hours of the article being published early in the morning, two opposition parties held a press conference, where opposition MP Veronika Remišová, who is the Chairwoman of the Parliamentary Committee on the Incompatibility of Functions, revealed that the Defence Minister failed to declare the seaside villa owned by his wife in Croatia.[2] Within a day, the controversy escalated into a full-blown scandal. 

Unamendability Preserved in Slovakia, but only as a Last Resort

On January 30, 2019, the Slovak Constitutional Court invalidated a constitutional amendment for breaking the implicit material core of the Constitution. It was a historic first, not only for Slovakia but also for the broader region, as no other European court had previously established the doctrine of an unconstitutional constitutional amendment without textual support in the constitution. This is a critical distinction, because the stickiness of the unamendability doctrine, or any new doctrinal development, depends on domestic normative sources justifying such a development as well as the power of the court, its popular support and the acquiescence of the losing party (often the legislature or executive).

The amending actors in Slovakia did not acquiesce, however, nor did they hesitate to adopt a new constitutional amendment rejecting judicial review of constitutional change in retaliation. The opposition challenged this action, arguing that a judicially enforced doctrine of unamendability is a necessary component of a modern-day liberal democracy.

Then, at the end of May 2022, the Constitutional Court finally had its say. The Court opted for a passive-aggressive approach, issuing what is colloquially known as a quasi-meritorious judgment. The court rejected the petition in a procedural ruling but supplied it with the reasoning that would fit better with a meritorious decision. A quasi-meritorious decision indicates that the Court wants to speak on the subject but cannot for whatever reason. In this case, the Court rejected the petition because the amendment it was supposed to review prevented it from reviewing constitutional amendments.

In the decision, the Courts confirmed its previous position that the Constitution, or at least its core, is unamendable and those core principles may, in the extreme, require judicial protection. The Court continues to maintain that the amending actors are not the absolute sovereign and are, in fact, limited in the exercise of great power by the basic constitutional framework delimited by The People at the moment of founding.

In the view of the Court, the Constitution is not value-neutral: "Although every legal norm is fundamentally changeable and revocable, from the point of view of the Constitution adopted in 1992, the basic principles of a democratic and rule of law (even without such explicit wording) are immutable." These values express the essence of the constitutional law posited by the sovereign (but identified by the Court through its case law), which can be further articulated by the amending actors to the extent that the values are not broken.

The Court held that with the adoption of the constitution, the "unlimited sovereignty of the citizens was transformed into the sovereignty of the state on its territory, exercised by a system of delegated powers." The three delegated powers are limited in competence and ought to be exercised to, among other things, protect democracy from retrogression. So the amending actors can do wrong, but the Court will generally exercise restraint when it comes to constitutional change. The Court accepted that the Court itself is also a limited power, which means that it cannot, in the time of ordinary politics, review a constitutional amendment.

The Court essentially found that, absent extraordinary circumstances, functional judicial review of constitutional change is not part of the material core. In extreme cases, however, of a core violation that has the intensity to change the character of the Slovak Republic as a democratic state based on the principle of the rule of law, the Court must intervene as the "constitutional guardian." If the amending actors were to overreach, the interpretation of the Constitutional Court's own competences would have to be extensively adapted to it to ensure the integrity of the founding document.

Suggested citation: Šimon Drugda, “Unamendability Preserved in Slovakia, but only as a Last Resort” (slovakconlaw, 16 June 2022) <https://slovakconlaw.blogspot.com/2022/06/unamendability-preserved-in-slovakia.html>

Three-times Slovak PM Charged in a Criminal Case

It has been more than three years since former PM Robert Fico tried to get appointed to the Constitutional Court,[1] thinking he would be able to either bargain[2] or force his way onto the CC.[3] At the time, he did not seek just to become a rank-and-file constitutional judge. Instead, Fico wanted to be the Court President because he believed that his experience and political capital as a former three-time PM qualified him for the position of leadership in his next career.[4] 

Fico was ultimately forced to withdraw his application[5] due to a controversy over his CV and broad political opposition to his nomination.[6] However, if he did not, we could have been in a situation where the CC President faced criminal prosecution.[7] That is because Robert Fico and his close colleague, former Minister of Interior Robert Kalíňak, were charged last week, and the latter was also detained, for leading an organised crime gang. The police claim that Fico and his co-defendants used their power to discredit opponents, illegally accessing private police and tax records.[8]

Fico has not been yet arrested because he is an MP. Members of Parliament enjoy robust protections and privileges to ensure the free exercise of the political office. For example, MPs cannot be prosecuted for voting on drafts, bills, motions, or any act or speech uttered in Parliament. Moreover, according to Article 78(2) of the Constitution, MPs cannot be taken into custody without the consent of the Parliament. The only exception is if an MP has been caught redhanded while committing a crime. Historically, the Parliament needed to consent also the prosecution of an MP, but a constitutional amendment in 2012[9] changed this only to necessitate parliamentary approval for criminal detention.[10]

 

Consequently, the Parliament should soon vote to either allow Fico's criminal detention or deny the motion, in which case he will be prosecuted without being taken into custody. The parliamentary Mandate and Immunity committee has recommended that MPs approve the prosecution's application for consent with the detention of an MP. However, the committee's opinions are not binding on the Parliament.[11] Even if the MPs vote to approve the application, a court will have finally to determine if the detention of an MP is justified. Whatever the outcome, the criminal prosecution of the former three-times PM will be one of the defining legal cases in the history of the Slovak republic.[12] 

Suggested citation: Šimon Drugda, “ Three-times Slovak PM Charged in a Criminal Case” (slovakconlaw, 3 May 2022) <https://slovakconlaw.blogspot.com/2022/05/three-times-slovak-prime-m-charged.html>

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[1] "Ex-PM Fico wants to be a Constitutional Court judge" (The Slovak Spectator, 7 January 2019) <https://spectator.sme.sk/c/22023186/ex-pm-fico-wants-to-be-a-constitutional-court-judge.html>; and

[2] "Constitutional Court hearings: The vote is a political affair, Fico says" (The Slovak Spectator, 23 January 2019) <https://spectator.sme.sk/c/22036335/constitutional-court-hearings-the-vote-is-a-political-affair-fico-says.html>

[3] "President Kiska: Fico wanted to blackmail me" (The Slovak Spectator, 25 February 2019) <https://spectator.sme.sk/c/22061262/president-kiska-fico-wanted-to-blackmail-me.html>

[4] TA3, "Ako prebiehalo vypočúvania Fica - kandidáta na ústavného sudcu" (Televízia TA3 YouTube, 12 February 2019) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpGOwjptkUA&ab_channel=TelevíziaTA3>

[5] "Slovakia: Robert Fico renounces bid for Constitutional Court job" (Kafkadesk, 13 February 2019) <https://kafkadesk.org/2019/02/13/slovakia-robert-fico-renounces-bid-for-constitutional-court-job/>

[6] Constitutional Committee, "Živé vysielanie TV NR SR - Vypočutie kandidátov na sudcov Ústavného súdu Slovenskej republiky" (TV NR SR - press live YouTube, 7 February 2019) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpb1POX_t8w&ab_channel=TVNRSR-presslive>

[7] Two other candidates for CC judges from 2019 have already been prosecuted for corruption. Retrospectively, it seems that the position attracted some in bad faith.

[8] William Nattrass, "Is Slovakia a mafia state?" (The Spectator, 26 April 2022) <https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-slovakia-a-mafia-state->

[9] Constitutional Act No 232/2012 Coll. Accessible at: <https://www.slov-lex.sk/pravne-predpisy/SK/ZZ/2012/232/20120901.html>

[10] Beata Balogová, "Parties agree to end MPs' immunity" (21 May 2012) (The Slovak Spectator, 21 May 2012) <https://spectator.sme.sk/c/20043457/parties-agree-to-end-mps-immunity.html>

[11] Nina Hrabovská Francelová, "Even with Fico in custody, Smer may retain popular support" (The Slovak Spectator, 28 April 2022) <https://spectator.sme.sk/c/22896574/parliament-debates-whether-to-allow-ficos-arrest.html>

[12] There is a precedent for the vote of the Parlaiemnt to allow the criminal, at the time, prosecution of an MP. In 1998, the Parliament consented to the prosecution of Ivan Lexa, who was implicated in the abduction of Michal Kováč Jr., the son of the former Slovak President. For context, see Ľuba Lesná, "Lexa wins case in Human Rights Court" (The Slovak Spectator, 29 September 2009) <https://spectator.sme.sk/c/20030535/lexa-wins-case-in-human-rights-court.html>

Ghostwriters of the Slovak Constitution’s Material Core: Summary of Findings

On January 30, 2019, the Slovak Constitutional Court struck down a constitutional amendment for breaking the implicit material core of the Constitution.[1] This was a historic first not only for Slovakia but also for the broader region because no other European court had previously founded the doctrine of unconstitutional constitutional amendment without textual support in the constitution.[2] However, three years after the decision, there remains normative disagreement about the legitimacy and implications of the judge-made doctrine of unamendability in Slovakia.

In this blog post, I present a new finding that a significant portion of the decision in the case PL. ÚS 21/2014 exhibits lexical similarity to the academic source material without proper attribution. This finding raises serious questions about the ethics of opinion writing at the Slovak Constitutional Court and the capacity of the Court to deliver high-quality decisions in difficult cases under time- and resource constraints. But this post is just a summary of the main findings. If you want to know more, you have to wait for the paper I am writing!

Main Finding

After examining the opinion in the case PL. ÚS 21/2014 for similarity with external sources, I found that there is a significant overlap between the opinion and at least seven academic sources that are accessible online. The matched source material was all published before the resolution of the case in January 2019. The observed similarity pertains exclusively to the part of the opinion on the material core of the Constitution, which is approximately 66 pages long (roughly 21,000 words). My estimate is that 40 percent of the text exhibit close lexical similarity with the source material.

The two sources with the most overlap are the only book published on unamendability in Slovakia The Material Core of the Constitution of the Slovak Republic (2014) and an article from a special symposium on Security Clearances of Judges (2018). Both of these publications have been authored by one of the clerks working on the case, and neither is cited or referred to in the opinion. This has been noted at least by two other authors, Neuman and Káčer, who in their shared text wrote (in a footnote) that they found an unattributed use of academic text in the opinion.[3] Neuman and Káčer suggested that the Court either plagiarised the source material or outsourced the production of the opinion to an external academic advisor (who self-plagiarised). Either of the two options are plausible and we will not know, which one is true without an official communication from the Court.

The Constitutional Court confirmed, in a response to my FOI request, that the clerk had worked on the case in the year 2018. This is a critical piece of information because the clerk’s contract was not recorded in the central registry of government contracts at the time.[4] 

Other Unattributed Source Use

Additionally, there is a strong correlation between the text of the decision and several academic articles, which were coincidentally authored by another external advisor, and a former Slovak Constitutional Court judge hired to work on the case as well as the academic work of a former head of the Czech Constitutional Court. Both of these individuals qualify as what I call "superclerks." Superclerks are former constitutional judges, who upon retirement take on the position of an external advisor to another judge of the Court. Superclerks conduct their work on vastly different terms from other clerks, because of their reputational capital and the knowledge they had acquired previously in the position they once held, but are now to serve.

The first judge-turned clerk has worked on the case from early 2014 until 2016 when his last contract expired. The contract of this advisor is unique because it is only one of the two external-adviser contracts in the government database that specifies the case file. The contract expressly states that the advisor was hired to work on the case PL. ÚS 21/2014. The second superclerk (former head of the Czech CC) wrote an expert opinion on the subject for the court just one month before the announcement of the final judgment in the case.

The full list of academic literature used in the opinion without attribution is as follows: 

• Boris Balog, Materiálne jadro Ústavy Slovenskej republiky (Eurokódex 2014)
• Boris Balog, "Bezpečnostné previerky sudcov," in Jozef Andraško, JUDr. Juraj Hamuľák (eds), Ústavodarná moc verzus kontrola ústavnosti (Comenius University in Bratislava 2018)
• Ján Drgonec, "Základné práva a slobody a vyvodená pôsobnosť Ústavného súdu SR," in Ladislav Orosz, Tomáš Majerčák (eds), Ochrana ľudských práv a základných slobôd ústavnými súdmi a medzinárodnými súdnymi orgánmi – III. ústavné dni (Pavol Jozef Šafárik University 2014)
• Ján Drgonec, "Neústavnosť ústavných zákonov v podmienkach Slovenskej republiky," (2015) 154 Právnik 8
• Ján Drgonec, "Implikované právne normy v ústavnom poriadku Slovenskej republiky," (2017) Zo súdnej praxe 1
• Pavel Holländer, "Materiální ohnisko ústavy a diskrece ústavodárce," (2005) 144 Právník 4
• Pavel Holländer, "Sean Connery, nominalistická revoluce a koncept moderní demokracie," (2015) 154 Právník 1

Method

The method used to identify the similarity with the text of the opinion was relatively crude because the available English plagiarism checkers do not link to databases and repositories of Slovak academic texts. I had therefore manually checked each paragraph in the opinion for matches through a web search engine for matches with available online sources. The analysis was limited to accessible content, however, which means that the real overlap can be higher.

In this paper, I am primarily interested in the lexical similarity between the court decision and academic sources in the Slovak language, but I also find similarities with two texts published in Czech. Lexical similarity measures the correspondence of texts as the "intersection of word sets of the same or different language." It is possible that a comparison of the court decision to the source material in English or German might discover additional overlap, but such analysis goes beyond the scope of this paper. The Court referred to multiple sources in the field of comparative constitutional change.

After identifying a match, I downloaded the source material to an open similarity analysis software that matched the overlapping text pattern between two texts. The software was imprecise because of the limited functionality of comparing text documents. To match the required format, I converted pdf into text files. Formatting issues due to conversion might have resulted in undetected overlap, which again means that the real similarity can be significantly higher.

Suggested citation: Šimon Drugda, “Ghostwriters of the Slovak Constitution’s Material Core: Summary of Findings” (slovakconlaw, 29 March 2022) <https://slovakconlaw.blogspot.com/2022/03/ghostwriters-material-core.html>

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[1] PL. ÚS 21/2014 <https://www.ustavnysud.sk/ussr-intranet-portlet/docDownload/718890c1-f3f4-43d8-9b76-36332dbd9b96/Rozhodnutie%20-%20N%C3%A1lez.pdf>           

[2] See Michel Hein, ‘The Least Dangerous Branch? Constitutional Review of Constitutional Amendments in Europe’ in Martin Belov (ed), Court, Politics and Constitutional Law: Judicialization of Politics and the Judiciary (2019) 195; also Yaniv Roznai and ‘Lech Garlicki, Introduction: Constitutional Unamendability in Europe’ (2019) 21 European Journal of Law Reform 3, 218

[3] Marek Káčer, Jakub Neumann, MATERIÁLNE JADRO V SLOVENSKOM ÚSTAVNOM PRÁVE Doktrinálny disent proti zrušeniu sudcovských previerok (Leges 2019) 60 (n98)

[4] An alternative explanation is that the clerks or external advisors hired by the Court had access to the draft opinion and used it in their academic work before the final judgment in the case. The publication date of the source material, however, mostly precedes the controversy. This indicates that the alterantive explanation, although theoretically possible does not seem true. 

Softlocking Slovakia: New Pandemic Lockdown and State of Emergency

The Slovak government declared a new state of emergency at the end of November 2021, combined with a two-week soft lockdown.[1] The state of emergency has been declared for 90 days, starting on November 25, on the whole territory of the republic. The lockdown should last until December 9. Both measures can be potentially extended if the pandemic situation so requires, although the government has signalled a preference for not keeping restrictive measures in place.

The Slovak constitutional framework[2] for crisis management newly permits the government to extend the duration of a pandemic emergency by 40 days, even repeatedly.[3] It is, therefore, possible that the state of emergency will be extended next year. The state of emergency adopted this time last year was extended twice.[4] Every extension of a pandemic emergency necessitates a subsequent parliamentary approval within 20 days. Without approval, the state of emergency expires by default.

The government declared the emergency after intense criticism from its expert advisory body and the head of state. President Čaputová urged the PM and his cabinet to act on the pandemic to avoid the loss of life the country had experienced last year after the holiday season.[5] Slovakia thus follows Austria as the second country in Europe to reintroduce state lockdown before holidays. That is due to a critical increase in the number of new Covid19 cases and hospitalisations –currently over 3000 patients.[6]

The emergency declaration provides for a two-week lockdown, consisting of a curfew between 5AM to 1AM on the following day (until December 9) and restrictions on the freedom of assembly (maximum of six people). The government also requests citizens to limit contact with others, keep contact primarily within a single household and prioritise online communication to keep in contact with close relatives. Finally, employers are requested to enable their employees to work from home, if possible.

The curfew order has been criticised for the numerous exceptions it permits. People are, of course, allowed to leave their homes for work (with proof of vaccination or a test), to shop for essentials, visit their doctor, go to the hospital or take the vaccination, but also for worship services, church or state weddings, funeral ceremonies and baptism without restriction on the number of churchgoers. Likewise, people can still attend mass sporting events, such as football, hockey, and basketball. The exemptions for worship services and sporting events contradict the limitations imposed on the freedom of assembly.

Executive Underreach?

Although the government’s response to the first pandemic wave in early 2020 was successful, its more recent attempts to tackle the subsequent waves mostly failed due to indecisiveness, coalition in-fighting, and preference for populist measures over science-based policy. Take, for example, the vaccination lottery that was supposed to incentivise senior citizens. The government spent 27mil EUR to increase the low vaccination rate, especially among vulnerable groups, but with little to no effect.[7] Instead, more than half of the population remains unvaccinated, despite the lottery or proposed financial incentives.[8]

Why has been the government failing? The conventional understanding in the field is that the executive might use the uncertainty and moral panic conditioned by emergencies to overreach – e.g. unduly limit the citizens’ rights, curb checking institutions and stack the deck against their political opponent. However, in a select few cases, we can observe the opposite tendency. David Pozen and Kim Lane Scheppelle term this behaviour an “underreach,” which they define as the “executive’s willful failure to address a significant public problem that the executive is legally and functionally equipped (though not necessarily legally required) to address.”[9] More specifically, they argue that the concept best describes situations where the political actors “sees a significant threat coming, has access to information about what might mitigate or avert the threat along with the power to set a potentially effective plan in motion,” but does not act.[10]

Slovakia arguably fits the description of an executive underreach. Political actors had access to information about the pandemic and a recent experience with the negative effects of slow response to the onset of the pandemic.[11] Yet, despite this, the government again shows passivity and unwillingness to introduce restrictive measures due to a fear of alienating their constituencies. The risk is that if the situation does not improve, the public health sector might collapse due to a shortage of hospital beds and ventilators.[12] The government’s failure to adequately respond to the crisis in 2020 ultimately led to the resignation of the PM and a cabinet reshuffle.[13] It remains to be seen if the current government survives its lacklustre response to the pandemic.

Suggested citation: Šimon Drugda, “Softlocking Slovakia: New Pandemic Lockdown and State of Emergency” (slovakconlaw, 4 December 2021) <https://slovakconlaw.blogspot.com/2021/12/softlocking-slovakia-new-lockdown.html>

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[1] Government Resolution no. 695, on the Declaration of the State of Emergency no. 428/2021 Coll. <https://www.slov-lex.sk/pravne-predpisy/SK/ZZ/2021/428/20211125>

[2] Constitutional Act on State Security in the Time of War, State of War, State of Emergency, and Crisis No. 227/2002 Coll. <https://www.slov-lex.sk/pravne-predpisy/SK/ZZ/2002/227/20201229>

[3] The option to extend the state of emergency applies only to pandemic emergencies to the exclusion of all other emergencies caused by natural disasters, catastrophes, industrial or nuclear accidents, which is a peculiar choice. The amendment to the CA on the state of emergency and other crises, adopted in late December 2020, was supposed to bring the legal framework in line with expert knowledge on the nature of emergencies, which can take longer than the constitutionally permitted maximum of 90 days. The response to the nuclear disaster in Japan, for example, took the better part of a year, during which the state of emergency remained in place in the prefecture. Sarah Fecht, “1 Year Later: A Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Timeline” (Scientific American, 8 March 2012) <https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/one-year-later-fukushima-nuclear-disaster/>

[4] “State of Emergency in Slovakia to Be Extended by Another 40 Days” (TASR, 5 February 2021) <https://newsnow.tasr.sk/policy/state-of-emergency-in-slovakia-to-be-extended-by-another-40-days/>

[5] Michal Hudec, “Lockdown on the horizon for Slovakia after president’s emotional appeal” (Euractive, 24 November 2021) <https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/lockdown-on-the-horizon-for-slovakia-after-presidents-emotional-appeal/>

[6] “Slovakia becomes the second European country to go into lockdown as COVID cases surge” (Euronews, 24 November 2021) <https://www.euronews.com/2021/11/24/slovakia-becomes-the-second-european-country-to-go-into-lockdown-as-covid-cases-surge>

[7] Michal Katuška, “Lottery worth €27 million did not help. It should have persuaded the elderly but lured the youth” (The Slovak Spectator, 3 November 2021) <https://spectator.sme.sk/c/22776193/lottery-worth-27-million-did-not-help-it-should-have-persuaded-the-elderly-but-lured-the-youth.html>

[8] “Coronavirus in Slovakia: 15,278 new cases confirmed (graphs)” (The Slovak Spectator, 3 December 2021) <https://spectator.sme.sk/c/22365153/coronavirus-in-slovakia-statistics-and-graphs.html>

[9] David E. Pozen and Kim Lane Scheppele, “Executive Underreach, in Pandemics and Otherwise” (2020) 114 American Journal of International Law 4, 609

[10] Ibid., 10

[11] Keno Verseck, “COVID-19: Slovakia mired in chaos” (Deutsche Welle, 1 March 2021) <https://www.dw.com/en/covid-19-slovakia-mired-in-chaos/a-56740390>

[12] Michal Hudec, “Slovak government finally takes action as hospitals verging on collapse” (Euractive, 17 November 2021) <https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/slovak-government-finally-takes-action-as-hospitals-verging-on-collapse/>

[13] Matthew Holroyd, “Slovakia’s prime minister steps down amid Sputnik V vaccine scandal” (Euronews, 30 March 2021) <https://www.euronews.com/2021/03/28/slovakia-s-prime-minister-to-step-down-amid-sputnik-v-vaccine-scandal>

Dataset on the use of presidential pardon and amnesty powers in Slovakia 1993-2021

This dataset compiles the statistic recording pardon applications, granted pardons, amnesty-pardons, and amnesties issued by presidents and acting heads of state in Slovakia between 1993-2021. The dataset includes a codebook and individual tab with a presentation of the data for each president.

This data shows a gradual decline in the use of the presidential pardon and amnesty power in Slovakia. This fascinating discovery served as an inspiration for the paper that I am currently writing under the provisional title "No Mercy: Disuetude of Presidential Pardon and Amnesty Power in Slovakia."

Suggested citation: Šimon Drugda, "Use of presidential pardon and amnesty powers in Slovakia 1993-2021" (slovakconlaw, 3 November 2021) <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OOQotAu7ySN0LwjimMOU8UWZz6pR2cgpNRuIyxJR5p8/edit?usp=sharing>