ABSTRACT
This chapter enquires into the origins and subsequent developments of three countries’ constitutional systems with a special focus on their presidencies. It analyzes various historical legacies that affected the constitution-making process in these countries. A comparison of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia shows that Poland may boast about a longer-lasting and richer pool of constitutional and political traditions than the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Unlike with foreign inspiration, path dependency and rational choice approaches were decisive in the constitution-making of the three countries. The path-dependency approach is most visible in the Czech case where the Constitution of the First Czechoslovak Republic heavily influenced the current Constitution of 1992. In Poland, there was more or less an equal combination of both approaches. The path dependency approach is probably least traceable in the current constitutional system of Slovakia. Although the original 1992 Constitution adopted a large number of elements of older constitutional texts, the constitutional amendments adopted after 1998 point to a greater relevance in the rational choice approach for the current constitutional text.
