The Extension of the Jurisdiction of Constitutional Court in Assessing the Constitutional Amendments – the Case of Slovakia and Kosovo

Abstract

Summary This paper examines the jurisprudence of the constitutional courts of Slovakia and Kosovo regarding their assessment of the constitutionality of constitutional amendments. The rationale for the selected countries stands behind the practices of their Constitutional Courts of, in terms of the jurisdiction expansion in assessing constitutional amendments. Considering the fact that these courts have been recently established, the Slovak Constitutional Court with the Constitution of 1992 and the Constitutional Court of Kosovo with the Constitution of 2008, it is the purpose of this paper to further analyze their initial work in assessing the constitutionality of constitutional amendments in the light of the impact of the German jurisprudence. Regardless the lack of experience in this regard, these courts have shown an interesting correlation between scientific doctrines and jurisprudences, which have served the judges to justify their decisions. In this direction, this paper frames its discussion in two key segments. Firstly, is the manner in which these courts have expanded their jurisdiction, an expansion that provided an assess to the constitutionality of constitutional amendments that goes beyond confronting the amendment with the explicit nature of the unamendability of the constitution. Secondly, on the impact of the German jurisprudence, especially in the case of the Slovak Constitutional court.