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Czechoslovakia CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
The Constitution promulgated on July 11, 1960, was the
nation's second post-World War II constitution, and, though
extensively revised through later amendments, it continued in
effect in 1987. It replaced the 1948 constitution (often called
the Ninth-of-May Constitution), which had come into force shortly
after the communist seizure of power. The 1948 constitution
established the vanguard role of the KSC within the Czechoslovak
state and government administration under the Leninist principle
of democratic centralism. It also granted a degree of autonomy to
Slovakia, which was given its own legislative body and
governmental structure, although these were made subordinate to
the central authorities in Prague. The most important change in
the 1960 Constitution was that it severely limited the autonomy
granted Slovakia. The executive branch of the Slovak government
was abolished and its duties assigned to the Presidium of the
Slovak National Council, thus combining executive and legislative
functions into a single body. The National Assembly of the
central government was given authority to overrule decisions of
the Slovak National Council, and central government agencies took
over the administration of the major organs of Slovak local
government. The 1960 Constitution reaffirmed that the KSC is the
"proven vanguard of the working class" and that the governing of
society and the state should continue to be in accordance with
the principle of democratic centralism. It further declared that
"socialism has triumphed in our country!" and that "we are
proceeding toward the construction of an advanced socialist
society and gathering strength for the transition to communism."
It also acknowledged "our great ally, the fraternal Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics." Accordingly, the name of the nation
was changed from the Czechoslovak People's Democracy to the
Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
The 1960 Constitution consists of a preamble and 112 articles
divided into 9 groupings called chapters. Chapter 1, titled "The
Social Order," describes Czechoslovakia as "a unitary State of
two fraternal nations possessing equal rights--the Czechs and the
Slovaks." Article 2 states that "all power in the Czechoslovak
Socialist Republic shall belong to the working people." State
power will be exercised "through representative bodies which are
elected by [the working people], controlled by them, and
accountable to them." Principles of the socialist economic
system, "in which the means of production are socially owned and
the entire national economy directed by plan," are also laid out.
Socialist ownership takes two forms: state ownership of natural
resources, the means of industrial production, public
transportation and communications, banks and insurance firms, and
health, educational, and scientific facilities; and cooperative
ownership, which is the property of people's cooperatives. Small
private enterprises "based on the labor of the owner himself and
excluding exploitation of another's labor" are permitted.
Personal ownership of consumer goods, homes, and savings derived
from labor is guaranteed, as is inheritance of such property.
Chapter 2 describes the rights and duties of citizens. Equal
rights regardless of nationality, race, or sex are guaranteed.
Education is free and compulsory to the age of sixteen; citizens
of Hungarian, Ukrainian, and Polish origin are ensured "every
opportunity and all means for education in their mother tongue."
Lifetime medical care and material security in old age and in
case of disability are guaranteed. Freedom of speech and of the
press "consistent with the interests of the working people" are
guaranteed. Also guaranteed is the "right to profess any
religious faith or to be without religious conviction, and to
practice religious beliefs insofar as this does not contravene
the law." Citizens are duty bound to serve in the armed forces,
and conscientious objection based on religious conviction is
specifically prohibited.
On October 27, 1968, the promulgation of the Constitutional
Law of Federation amended fifty-eight articles of the
Constitution concerning the structure of government. Again the
reform concerned Slovak autonomy; the concentration of
governmental authority in Prague was a source of discontent
within Slovakia throughout the 1960s, and the federalization of
the Czechoslovak government codified in the 1968 constitutional
amendments was virtually the only product of the reform
movement associated with the Prague Spring to survive. The
Czechoslovak state was declared to be composed of "two equal
fraternal nations," the Czech Socialist Republic and the Slovak
Socialist Republic, each with its own national administration
paralleling and, at least in theory, equal in status to the
federal government. Dual citizenship was established, and many of
the former functions of the central government were instead
placed under the jurisdiction of the two national governments.
The federal government retained exclusive jurisdiction over
foreign affairs, national defense, federal reserves, and national
resources and held joint jurisdiction in a number of other
matters, but the extent of the federalization reform was
remarkably vast.
The most significant and lasting change under the 1968
constitutional law was the replacement of the unicameral National
Assembly with a bicameral legislature known as the Federal
Assembly
(see
fig. 15). The two bodies, given equal authority,
were the Chamber of the People, which was identical to the old
National Assembly, and the Chamber of the Nations, which
contained an equal number of Czechs and Slovaks. This
institutional reform, together with a provision that certain
decisions required the majority consent of each half (Czech and
Slovak) of the Chamber of the Nations, was designed to end Slovak
fear of Czech domination of the legislative branch of the
government.
It soon became clear, however, that many aspects of the 1968
federalization were politically, as well as administratively,
impractical. Political power remained firmly centralized in the
KSC (proposals to federalize the party were dropped after the
1968 invasion), and the administration of two economic systems,
two police systems, and the like proved unworkable. July 1971
amendments to the 1968 Constitutional Law of Federation unified
the administration of these and other government functions, ended
the practice of dual citizenship and, most important, authorized
the federal government to interfere with and invalidate measures
of the national governments. Although most of the structures of
the 1968 reform remained intact, observers of the Czechoslovak
system of government in the 1970s agreed that federalism remained
little more than a facade after the enactment of the 1971
constitutional amendments. In May 1975, the 1968 Constitutional
Law of Federation was further amended to allow Husak to take over
the presidency from the ailing Ludvik Svoboda. At the Seventeenth
Party Congress in 1986, Husak called for the preparation of a new
constitution to replace the 1960 document.
Data as of August 1987
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