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it may be stated that the Court quite successfully adopted a ‘doctrine of avoiding the questions of Community law,’ 80 although such an approach could hardly be considered as a doctrine at all. This reluctance to deliver an opinion seemingly disappeared in January 2011, when the Court via its ruling adopted the position of the doctrine of European constitutional monism, i.e. acknowledged the dominance of EU law over domestic law and bound all public bodies including itself to apply predominantly EU and only then national law. Thus, the SCC decided for the monist interpretation and showed no preference for constitutional pluralism. This position was, though, not confirmed in any other ‘hard case’ which would imply a conflict between the legal orders. Additionally, the debate on the causes and consequences of the SCC’s approach, without aspiring to demonstrate causality mechanisms, pointed to a mixture of reasons, why the SCC could have moved in this direction, including the tradition of legal monism cemented in communist times, and the specialization and doctrinal views of the judges of the SCC. Rejecting constitutional pluralism can stimulate the need for one of the orders to prevail if these approach differently the scope of protection of a certain fundamental right, and raise challenges with the conformity of certain constitutional provisions with EU law. 81 Signs of a more sophisticated and active approach to these issues, which would help overcome some challenges of European integration for Slovakia, have not been observed since then in the SCC’s jurisprudence. It remains to be seen whether the Court will stick to its previous reasoning and create a stable doctrine by means of its upcoming decisions and whether the adopting of this ‘simpler solution’ with a rather general and vague reasoning will have a norm setting effect among other judicial and political institutions operating in the Slovak political system.

80 Jánošíková, Martina, op. cit. (No. 43). 81 One case seems to be in development already. Constitutional act No. 306/2014 Coll. amended the Article 4 of the Slovak Constitution (Section 2, first part of the first sentence), according to which ‘The transportation of water taken from water supplies located in the territory of the Slovak Republic through the borders of the Slovak republic with means of transport or pipelines shall be prohibited (…)’ (authors’ own translation due to absence of the amended English-language version). The European Commission already investigates the conformity of this provision with the free movement of goods in the EU. The Slovak government aims to defend the regulation, among others, with the peculiar argument that ‘water does not count as common goods, it is a strategic raw material which deserves to be protected in the Constitution.’ See Minister Žiga: Slovakia defends ban on water exports. In“ Slovak Spectator [Online]. 2016-02-03 [accessed 2016-02-06]. Available at: http://spectator.sme.sk/c/20086280/minister-ziga- slovakia-defends-legal-ban-on-water-exports.html.

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