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Constitutional Act No. 144/1968 Coll., on the Status of Nationalities

The Constitutional Act on the Status of Nationalities was adopted simultaneously with the Constitutional Act on the Czechoslovak Federation. It is interesting that those constitutional acts, although adopted on the same day, defined the state differently. The Constitutional Act on the Czechoslovak Federation defined Czechoslovakia as a state composed of Czechs and Slovaks while the Constitutional Act on Nationalities defined Czechoslovakia as a common state of Czech and Slovak nation and nationalities living on its territory.

The state expressly recognized four nationalities – Hungarian, German, Polish and Ukrainian (Ruthenian) that were all historical national minorities settled on the Czech, Moravian, Silesian and Slovakian territory. The notion of Ukrainian (Ruthenian) nationality was used as a synonym of Ruthenian nationality even though in the past there was a dispute among those nationals about the Ukrainian, Russian and separate Rutheninan orientation. The law explicitly granted constitutional rights to the non-Slavic Hungarian and German nationalities. That terminated their impaired position resulting from the Second World War.  The Constitutional Act granted nationalities the right to be represented in the elected organs proportionally to their number. Nationals were granted the right on education, on their own language, on cultural growth, on the use of their own language before the authorities in the regions inhabited by those nationals, right to found national cultural associations, freedom of press and information in their own language. Every citizen had the right to freely decide on his nationality; national discrimination was prohibited.

The Constitutional Act was never amended. It was abolished by the Constitutional Act introducing the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms No. 23/1991 Coll.