Constitution of Slovakia
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. It went to effect on 1 October 1992 (some parts 1 January 1993). The passing of constitution is now 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 led by Professor Juraj Plank prepared the first draft  of the Slovak Constitution. The Slovak Constitution was prepared hastily in 1992, with many formulations taken directly from the Czechoslovak Constitution of 1920 and being marked by a compromise with socialism. 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 9 parts (most parts are divided into chapters), which in turn are divided into 156 articles and they may 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.