2023 State of the Rule of Law Report

For the fourth year, as part of a joint initiative of the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ENNHRI), we prepared a detailed report on the state of the rule of law in Slovakia for the previous year, which ENNHRI submits to the European Commission within the framework of the European Rule of Law Mechanism as a joint report of all national human rights institutions in the EU Member States.

The European Rule of Law Mechanism is an annual dialogue on the rule of law between the European Commission, the Council and the European Parliament, conducted together with Member States, civil society and other stakeholders. The Rule of Law Report forms the basis of this process within the Rule of Law Mechanism. It serves not only as a basis for discussions at EU level, but also as a means of preventing rule of law problems from arising or worsening.

This year, our State of the rule of law report focused on monitoring developments in selected areas of the rule of law in Slovakia. The Centre has closely monitored and assessed the implementation of the recommendations made by the European Commission in its last year’s 2022 Report on the State of the Rule of Law in Slovakia, as well as by other regional and international bodies in the area of the rule of law at the national level. Beyond the recommendations, however, this year we continued to focus on areas such as the independence, effectiveness and specific activities of the Centre in the rule of law area, we also highlighted the shrinking democratic space for human rights defenders and civil society, shortcomings in the implementation of judgments of European courts, particularly the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the EU, the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on human rights, democracy and the rule of law, as well as other pressing challenges in the protection and promotion of the rule of law in Slovakia.

We are very pleased that the information on the forthcoming 2023 State of the Rule of Law Report did not escape the attention of the European Commission and that we had the opportunity to participate in a meeting with representatives of the European Commission to present our monitoring and evaluation conclusions from the latest Rule of Law Report. At the same time, we very much appreciated the interest of the European Commission in the conclusions of our project “Fostering Innovative Approaches to Rule of Law Monitoring in Slovakia”, to and an opportunity to briefly present our newly developed monitoring tool.

We believe that the joint report on the rule of law as well as the results of our discussion during the technical meeting will serve as an important basis for further discussions within the EU as well as at the national level in order to highlight possible shortcomings, the timely resolution of which will undoubtedly lead to the promotion and protection of the rule of law.

The full version of the Report on the State of the Rule of Law is available in English at the ENNHRI website (link opens pdf file).

The report has been prepared as part of the project „Supporting National Human Rights Institutions in Monitoring Fundamental Rights and the Fundamental Rights Aspects of the Rule of Law“ which is funded by EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Regional Cooperation.