AMNESTY AND PARDON UNDER THE SLOVAK LAW AND THEIR UNIQUE STORY

Abstract

The article analyses a unique phenomenon in the Slovak society - amnesty that has been abolished nearly twenty years later after it was granted and this procedure was confirmed by the highest authority that oversees constitutionality - the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic. The authors focus on the analysis of this phenomenon from a comparative law perspective and from the perspective of national constitutional and criminal law. An interesting and sadly amusing case when the amnesty granted by the deputy president was abolished twenty years later is apparently unique worldwide. The uniqueness of this case lies in several aspects which deserve a more detailed legal analysis. There is a limited number of cases worldwide when amnesties were abolished but these cases have always concerned either an amnesty related to a war conflict genocide or an amnesty related to a mass destruction of people for political reasons. This was not the case in Slovakia.

In 1998, Vladimir Mečiar, holding the office of the prime minister and, at the same time, the deputy president, firstly granted amnesty in connection with the dismissal of the referendum on the direct election of the president and, in particular, in connection with the kidnapping of the son of the former President Michal Kovac. The case also featured an individual pardon granted by President Michal Kováč to his son on suspicion of economic crime. This is just the beginning of the story with very serious and far-reaching legal consequences.