Current proposals to amend the Constitution of the Slovak Republic: constitutional amendment as a political tool?

Marek Domin

Marek Domin holds a PhD in Constitutional Law and is an associate professor in Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law of the Comenius University in Bratislava (Slovakia).

Introduction

The constitution, including the Constitution of the Slovak Republic, is a living document that must to some extent respond to social developments. However, as I will show in this post, not all proposals for amending constitutional texts are desirable, especially if constitutional actors are not completely serious about the change. The disrespect for the constitution thus shown is a global problem. This post illustrates this with reference to the Slovak example.

Since its adoption in 1992, the Slovak Constitution has been directly amended 22 times, with even more proposals for amendment submitted. In Slovak politics, there is a tendency to address almost all political problems by amending the constitution. One example is a bizarre proposal for the adoption of a constitutional act regulating the shooting of bears.

In 2025, two interesting proposals to amend the Slovak Constitution were submitted, one by the Government, and the other by one of the opposition parties. Both proposals contain several relatively controversial issues, which can be classified as cultural and ethical problems. The Government's proposal comes at a time of crisis between the ruling parties, when it is unclear whether the Government still has the support of a majority of deputies of the parliament. As this post will explain, it is possible to speculate in this context whether the proposed amendments to the Constitution might be seen as the beginning of a campaign towards early parliamentary elections.

The Government proposal

The Government introduced its proposal by claiming that it aims to adjust cultural and ethical issues in the Constitution so that they will not be subject to various interpretations and abuse in political struggle. It argues with the definition of marriage as a union only between a man and a woman, which has  been part of the Slovak Constitution since 2014.

The most controversial part of the Government proposal concerns Art. 7, paragraph 2 of the Constitution, which represents the constitutional basis for the possible transfer of the exercise of certain powers to the European Union, of which the Slovak Republic has been a member since 2003. The text states that legally binding acts of the EU take precedence over Slovak laws. The precedence of the EU law over legal orders of Member States is crucial for the functioning of the Union. The Government proposal would disapply the primacy of EU law on this matter. It is this point of the proposed amendment that has been subjected to the greatest expert criticism.

From the point of view of specific cultural and ethical issues, the Government proposal addresses the number of sexes („pohlavie“ in Slovak). The Government has put forward an amendment according to which "The Slovak Republic recognizes only the sexes of man and woman." However, the text formulated in this way seems absurd, since a legal norm cannot define or change biological reality. If there are two sexes, they will exist regardless of whether this is enshrined in the Slovak Constitution. If there are more, they will also exist regardless of whether the Slovak Constitution claims that there are only two.

The very first government proposal, which was later changed, even envisaged amending a part of the Constitution regulating fundamental rights and freedoms as follows: "Sex may be changed only for serious reasons. Details shall be established by law." The debate on the issue of sex reassignment, in a considerably vulgarized form, became part of Slovak political discourse, especially after the Olympic Games in Paris, during which a case regarding the sex of boxer Imane Khelif emerged. The cited norm, paradoxically, would introduce the right to sex reassignment into the Slovak Constitution, which the constitutional text had not known until now. Such a conservatively tuned intervention in the constitutional text would add a fundamental right that instead evokes more progressive thinking. However, it would not be the first time that the creators of a constitutional amendment wanted one thing but achieved the opposite. In 2006, one proposal wanted to amend the Constitution to limit the immunity of MPs for administrative offences. However, thanks to clumsy drafting, the adopted amendment achieved the opposite, as it further expanded the scope of MP immunity.

The opposition proposal

The MPs of the opposition Christian Democratic Movement, which currently has 11 out of 150 seats in the Slovak parliament, reacted to the earlier Government proposal for amending the Constitution. The opposition proposal also focused on Art. 7, which would be supplemented with an interpretation clause. According to this, Art. 7 of the Slovak Constitution, allowing the transfer of the exercise of powers to the EU, could not be interpreted as the consent of the Slovak Republic to the transfer of powers in further defined areas. Namely, these areas would be cultural and ethical issues related to the life and dignity of a human being from conception to natural death, the institution of marriage between a man and a woman as the foundation of society, or public morality, as well as related decision-making on matters in the field of healthcare, science or education. The proposed list is relatively long and vague.

The proposal of the Christian Democratic Movement also includes the addition of Art. 41 of the Constitution with the following norm: "The parents of a child are the mother and father; the mother of the child is a woman, and the father of the child is a man. The conditions of adoption shall be established by law." Similar to the Government proposal, this statement seems largely unnecessary and only copies biological reality. From a strictly biological point of view, a woman can never be a father and a man a mother. In the explanatory memorandum to the proposal, we read that the proposed amendment aims to constitutionally enshrine the traditional understanding of parenthood and prevent possible attempts to redefine the concept of parenthood in the future through legal regulation or court decisions. Its authors link this proposal to another point in their text, which would explicitly prohibit agreements on motherhood, i.e. so-called surrogacy. However, even in the case of surrogacy, the mother will always be a woman, and the father will always be a man, at least from a biological point of view.

Conclusion

The biggest drawback of the proposals discussed above for amending the Slovak Constitution, especially the Government one, is not their controversial content. What is worse is that the effort to improve the content of the Constitution, although apparently underappreciated outside conservative circles, is not sincere. The Government coalition, even with the possible support of the Christian Democratic Movement, does not have sufficient votes to approve the amendment to the Constitution (90 votes are required).

Also, in view of the above, one can encounter opinions that the submitted proposals for amending the Constitution, especially the Government’s proposal, are only an attempt to cover up current economic and social problems in Slovakia and (or) the beginning of an electoral campaign before possible early parliamentary elections. Given the political conflicts between the two ruling parties, it is currently unclear whether the Government still has the support of an absolute majority of deputies in the parliament, without whose trust the Government cannot function properly. Whether the proposals for amending the constitutional text presented in this article follow the first or the second reason, the fact is that the Slovak Constitution, already often compared to a tear-off calendar, does not deserve such  treatment.

Marek Domin holds a PhD in Constitutional Law and is an associate professor in Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law of the Comenius University in Bratislava (Slovakia).

Suggested Citation: Marek Domin, ‘Current proposals to amend the Constitution of the Slovak Republic: constitutional amendment as a political tool?’ IACL-AIDC Blog (15 April 2025) Current proposals to amend the Constitution of the Slovak Republic: constitutional amendment as a political tool? — IACL-IADC Blog