The Current State of Recodification Works of Slovak Private Law and Its Perspectives

The article discusses the current state of the ongoing process of private law recodification in the Slovak Republic. Despite the efforts promised by every new government, to this day, none of them have achieved a recodification of civil law that would ultimately result in unambiguous treatment of, in particular, the so-called questions of values, nor have any of them seen through the creation of a codex, which has long been required. The need for recodification first became apparent even before the November 1989 Revolution. The focus of the expert public post-revolution was on filling the legal vacuum that came about through the abolition of the Economic Code and the Code of International Trade and on substituting them with a new and equivalent legal regulation. Due to time constraints and the urgent need for a solution to the given situation, the country failed to adopt a single universal regulation for private law; instead, the so-called major amendment of the previous Civil Code was adopted. This state has since prevailed; thus, Slovakia’s legal system is still subject to a Civil Code from 1964, amended on several occasions, as well as the Commercial Code from 1991. This is despite the numerous attempts to recodify private law, the last attempt having been introduced to the public at the end of 2018. The form of this reform was, however, surprising. Slovakia saw a change in governments in 2020, and the new government has, to date, declared other priorities in the domain of justice. It is, therefore, difficult to say whether the new government will adopt the ambition to recodify private law and, if so, to what extent it will succeed in completing this goal.