The Legislative Tools of the New Power. Political Persecution in Slovakia in 1938 – 1939

The study analyses the legislative tools used to liquidate the democratic regime in Slovakia from the autumn of 1938, when it was proclaimed to be politically autonomous. The new autonomous government made use of the existing judicial tools, namely those related to military mobilisation, and set about the rapid preparation of its own regulations.
Limitations to civil rights and freedoms that were introduced to defend the democratic system from the direct threat posed by the Third Reich, especially those regarding freedom of speech and assembly, thus were quickly turned against democracy itself. The study documents the extent to which an initial departure from a general pluralist environment within civic society has become a condition for the introduction of openly anti-Jewish legal regulations.