(1) The State Defence Council manages the organisation and the principal preparations to be taken for the defence of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic... To meet this function it:
b) approves basic measures to prepare the state organs and economies of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republics for the event of war
e) suggests to the relevant state organs measures that are necessary to the management of the state in the case of war
(2) In fulfilment of its decisions based on the power listed in (1), the State Defence Council can give binding tasks to federal ministries, committees and other central federal state bodies.
(3) The State Defence Council:
a) gives the federal parliament reports on the state of preparation of the defence of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, and of its more important measures, and recommends steps that it considers necessary and adequate.
"The law doesn't set any responsibility for the chairman of the State Defence Council to act [on information it receives from the secret service regarding possible corruption at the State Material Reserves Fund], but certainly there is political and above all moral responsibility to act quickly."
Ernest Valko, constitutional law expert, for
The Slovak Spectator, August 16, 2000
