Personality Rights in Central and Eastern Europe. A domestic report – the Slovak Republic

The Slovakian law protects personality rights in the way it does both the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the human being and citizen and the non-material rights protected by regulations of the civil law. They are effective erga omnes, which means a general prohibition of violating them. The Slovak doctrine divides personality rights into ’general’, which are of the non-property character and are granted to everybody, and ‘specific’, which are granted only to some subjects and which are of the mixed – property-non-property nature. The latter include rights of intellectual property. In the Slovak law there is still present the controversy as regards monistic or pluralistic character of personality rights. The list of personality rights is basically open; neither are they inseparably linked to the human being. After the physical person’s death, the right of their execution passes onto persons indicated in the act. Responsibility for infringement of personality rights has the objective character and the aggrieved party can lay claims for relinquishment, removal of effects of infringement, damages and compensation.