qualities of those who are charged with the administration. Every state has to take measures which in this respect have a preventive or repressive effect. The most effective measure here is the duty imposed on a state official or on the state itself to make good any damage caused to a citizen through the illegal exercise of public power. In this regard our Republic has had in mind the examples especially of France and England, and has determined this question by special enactments, hoping thus to assure a just application of juridical rules for the benefit of all citizens generally and of minorities in particular. Paragraphs 92 and 93 of the Constitutional Charter form the basis of these measures, to which effect will be given as soon as conditions become normal again.

A special section (Section V) of the Charter of the Constitution is devoted to the so-called fundamental rights and liberties of citizens. The enumeration of them is much more comprehensive than is usual in Constitutional Charters and emphasis has been given to certain matters, the importance of which was manifest in what was formerly Austria. Privileges derived from sex, birth or calling are not recognized; private ownership is inviolable, Par. 109 of the Charter declaring that private ownership may be limited or abolished only by law, that is, not by any mere executive measure. All these rights guaranteed by the Constitution are protected, by the Supreme Administrative Court, a court which, in the technical sense, sees to the legality of the public administration when claims or complaints are advanced from any quarter. Our state is thus fitted out with all the attributes and means of a state based upon right. That it is possible in certain cases to limit by an ordinary law the rights and liberties

guaranteed by the Constitution or even, in circumstances of some extraordinary nature, to suspend these rights partially or completely, is nothing new. We meet with the same thing in other democratic republics.

Section VI of the Constitutional Charter deals with the protection of racial and religious minorities (section 2 of Par. 106 and Par. 122 of the Charter treat also of this matter). Our Constitution has adopted the stipulations of the Treaty of St. Germain relative hereto and has gone further than our international engagements require, in declaring Par. 131 and 132 of the Charter, as fundamental (constitutional) articles, though the Treaty of Saint Germain in no way requires this. Here again our state desired to give a proof of its good will to settle the rights of minorities with perfect equity. This was also the case with regard to the provisions in the Constitution as to the use of languages where our scrupulous desire to fulfil our international engagements went so far as to cause us to adopt the very terminology of the conclusion of Article 4 of the Treaty of St. Germain, the CzechoSlovak language being designated as the state, official language (langue d'Etat, langue officielle).

It is clear to every unbiased observer that the provisions of the Constitution relating to language are permeated both in letter and in spirit with the idea of perfect justice. The view that the Treaty of St. Germain prohibits the limitation of the language rights of minorities to a certain percentage of those minorities or to a certain area, is not supported by the Treaty of St. Germain itself (Article 7, Section 4). The Charter of the Constitution declares solemnly in its 134th paragraph that every species of forcible denationalization is strictly forbidden.

To sum up, it may be said that the definitive Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic aims at being the democratic and just basis of public life in our state. It is a matter then, especially for our minorities, racial and religious, loyally to acknowledge these good traits and aims of our Constitution and to act accordingly.

II

RULES OF FRANCHISE

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

By V. JOACHIM

ELECTIONS TO THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES (Act of Parliament of 29 February 1920. No. 123 in the Code of Laws and Regulations.)

There are twenty-three parliamentary constituencies, the smallest of which elect six members, the largest (Prague) forty-five.

The right to vote is enjoyed by every citizen who has attained the age of twenty-one years and who is entered on the standing list of voters (see below).

A voter has the right to vote only in one constituency and must record his vote in person.

Any citizen of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, irrespective of sex, who on the day of election has attained the age of thirty years may be elected deputy, provided that he (or she) has been a Czecho-Slovak citizen for at least three years and has not been legally deprived by the Court of the right to vote.

Every voter entered upon the list of voters is obliged to vote; an exception, however, is made in favor of persons seventy years of age and over, sick persons, etc. (whoever, without reasonable grounds of excuse, fails to take part in an election is liable to a fine of twenty to 5000 crowns or to a term of im

prisonment varying from twenty-four hours to one month).

Twenty-one days at the latest before the election day and not later than 12 o'clock noon the various political parties present to the chairman of the election committee of the constituency their lists of candidates. Such lists are only valid if they are attested by the officially confirmed signatures of at least one hundred voters whose names appear on the list of voters for the particular constituency.

To each list of candidates there must be annexed a written declaration, personally signed by all the candidates, to the effect that they accept their nomination as candidates and that their names do not appear with their consent on any other list of candidates and that they have not been nominated in any other constituency.

The election committee of the constituency examines the lists of candidates to see if they conform to the formalities prescribed and to amend them, if necessary, with the assistance of representatives of the political parties.

Fourteen days at the least before the election day the chairman of the election committee publishes in the official journals of the constituency all the valid lists of candidates, indicating the parties, the election number assigned to each, and giving a complete and exact designation of each candidate.

The lists of candidates are then printed in the form of ballot papers, all having the same type and the same size of lettering, being printed on paper of the same color and form and having the seal of the elec