ABSTRACT
The Slovak Constitutional Court (SCC) is commonly known as one of the Central European “guardians of constitutionalism”, which successfully helped establish democratic standards through the division of powers and guarantees of fundamental rights. Yet there has been a lack of research on its decision-making since the accession of Slovakia to the European Union, and the differences between the three constitutional courts, divided in line with its three presidents so far. This chapter uses the analytical framework of the “negative” and “positive” legislator to address whether and if so why the SCC acted as a legislator during the three court terms. For this purpose, it uses a new dataset (generated within the JUDICON project) that allows us to identify how the SCC positioned itself vis-à-vis changing legislative majorities between 1993 and 2015, and whether there has been a period in which it used its legislating capacities beyond the average standard. The analysis offers new findings about each of the three constitutional courts. During the period of the third, with a few exceptions, the SCC’s rulings gradually shifted towards those favourable to the parliamentary majority (2006–2010) and the head of state. Moreover, the recent emptying out of the bench due to the conflict over the president’s authority regarding the appointment procedures further exacerbated the resignation of the majority over the legislating function of the SCC and gave rise to some arguably unconstitutional decision-making practices.
