Given our long-term experiences, we have successfully acted on behalf of our clients at the Constitutional Court in the Slovak Republic as well as at the European Court of Human Rights.
Constitutional law provides for the most significant internal social relations within a state, connected mainly with organizations and the functioning of public power and relationships between the public power and persons. The Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic is an independent judicial body protecting the constitutionality of the Slovak Republic. It provides for decisions on legal matters, either of lower legal enforcement (legislation) or of higher legal
enforcement (usually the Constitution) of individual constitutional complaints lodged by natural and legal persons against decisions of organs of the public power (largely by courts) if their rights have been breached. The Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic makes further decisions on the competence of conflicts between central organizations and state administration, if legislation does not provide that these conflicts are under the decisions of
another state body. The Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic interprets the constitution or constitutional legislation if the matter is disputable.
The constitutional complaint is a tool that enables natural and legal persons to approach the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic to investigate whether their constitutional rights and freedoms have been breached. However; before launching a constitutional complaint, an applicant has to exhaust all remedies available for protecting his or her rights. Constitutional complaints are important tools for compliance with the Constitution and to protect fundamental rights and freedoms. Act no. 314/2018 Coll. on the Constitution of the Slovak Republic requires that the applicant be represented by a lawyer at the Constitutional Court during the entire proceedings.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is an international court that reviews complaints concerning breaches of the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of the states which signed the convention. If an individual has the feeling that his rights or freedoms have been breached by signatories of the ECHR in a country in which the individual lives, he or she could launch a complaint to the ECHR. Then the ECHR judges the complaint and decides, whether there has been a breach of the convention. If there has been a breach of the ECHR, it can take measures for remedy or compensation for damage. The ECHR is not a part of the state judiciary but has binding decisions for member states. This means that if the state has been convicted for a breach of the convention, it has to accept appropriate measures to remedy the conflict and prevent future breaches.
Hence, constitutional and ECHR complaints have a common goal – the protection and enforcement of individual rights and freedoms of persons. Constitutional law provides a framework for fundamental rights within an inter-state system, while the ECHR provides a possibility to lodge complaints in cases where an individual considers that his or hers rights have been breached by the state. The ECHR provides in this manner another tool for the protection of human rights and freedoms within Europe.
If necessary, we are here for you, and we can provide you with professional legal services and help you find effective solutions for a specific situation.