The Consequences of COVID-19 Emergency Risk Mismanagement: The Rise of Anti-Evidence Decision Making in Slovakia

Journal Article: The Consequences of COVID-19 Emergency Risk Mismanagement: The Rise of Anti-Evidence Decision Making in Slovakia

Journal: European Journal of Risk Regulation - Special Issue on Constitutional Risk Management in the V4 Countries, Edited by Zoltán Szente & Fruzsina Gárdos-Orosz

Date of Publication: June 26, 2025

Author: Tomáš Gábriš, Department of Historical Law and Legal Methodology, Faculty of Law, Trnava University, Trnava, Slovakia; and Max Steuer, Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India, and Department of Political Science, Faculty of Arts, Comenius University in Bratislava, Bratislava, EU/Slovakia

How to Cite: Gábriš, T; Steuer, M. The Consequences of COVID-19 Emergency Risk Mismanagement: The Rise of Anti-Evidence Decision Making in Slovakia. European Journal of Risk Regulation. 2025;16(2): 446-459. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/err.2025.10015

Abstract: This article contributes to understanding how inexperience and lack of commitment to evidence-based decision making may undermine an otherwise broadly functional framework for constitutional risk management. As part of a focus on the “Visegrád Four” countries, it also helps understand regional dynamics since the COVID-19 pandemic as the most visible emergency after 1989. The article starts with a brief elucidation of the political contexts that have shaped Slovakia’s constitutional risk management, focusing on the developments from 2020 through early 2025. An analysis of mechanisms of emergency risk management in the constitutional framework follows, that helps identify key state authorities attempting to make decisions under serious time pressures. The implementation of the constitutional framework during the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the creation of new avenues for restricting rights and bolstering executive competence, with the formally powerful constitutional review mechanisms struggling to challenge these decisions. Ultimately, political context emerges as key: Slovakia entered the COVID-19 pandemic with a governing coalition enjoying constitutional majority and an aura of reform and hope. The emergency mismanagement not only facilitated the breakup of this coalition and early elections, but also a rise in emergency conspiracies openly hostile to institutions and actors committed to evidence-based decision making.

The article can be found here, and in PDF form here.

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