Peter Tkačenko (source: SME)
Some people keep their minds sharp well into old age by solving daily barrages of arithmetic, logic and language puzzles. Others rely on products from pharmaceutical labs. And then there are the convicts of politics who not only strive to understand the latest treacheries of the ruling coalition, but to interpret them as well.
In this case, the constitutional change Robert Fico [Slovakia’s populist prime minister] wants to push through with the votes of the willing and the witless. In truth, it’s just one amendment, asserting Slovakia’s sovereignty “especially in matters of national identity,” which it then defines as “mainly” a set of basic “cultural and ethical issues”.
It may sound trivial – surely international law cannot override the will and power of the people as the domestic sovereign? But in fact, it’s the other way around. There are perhaps twenty reasons why it must be so. Which is why a constitutional attempt to deny this principle protects not the republic, but its government.
