Slovak Share in the Unification and Codification Efforts in Interwar Czechoslovakia

Abstract

The creation of the Czechoslovak Republic and its legal system had its basis in the Act No. 11/1918 Coll. The Act preserved in force former Hungarian law in the territory of Slovakia. In Czech lands, former Austrian law was to be used further on. Quite understandably, attempts were present already in the interwar period to unify the legal system of Czechoslovakia. Analysis of the process and results of unification of law in Czechoslovakia reveals the participation of broad-scale of Slovak lawyers in the process and partial influence of law valid in Slovakia in the projects of new Czechoslovak codes. In the area of substantive law, the revised Austrian Civil Code (ABGB) was to become the basis of the new Czechoslovak Civil Code and therefore, not much space was left for “Slovak law”to influence the final version of the Civil Code project. In the area of procedural law, however, the codes of civil procedure valid in the Czech part and in the Slovak part of the Republic were not as different as it was the case with the substantive civil law. Therefore, the unification process was easier and many institutes of law valid in Slovakia were to be preserved in the project of the Czechoslovak Civil Procedure Code. Unfortunately, the events of the years 1938–1939 was the reason for none of the prepared projects being actually enacted. It was only after the Second World War (mostly in 1950) that the legal order was finally unified in Czechoslovakia.