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Constitutional Act No. 100/1990 Coll., that amends and supplements the Constitutional Act No. 100/1960 Coll., the Constitution of the Czechoslovak Federal Republic, and the Constitutional Act No. 143/1968 Coll., on the Czechoslovak Federation

The Constitutional Act No. 100/1990 Coll. was adopted on 18 April 1990. It came into effect by its promulgation on 23 April 1990. As its name implies, this Constitutional Act amended the Constitution of 1960 and the Constitutional Act on the Czechoslovak Federation of 1968.

This short Constitutional Act constitutes one of the key constitutional acts related to the change of the regime from totalitarian to democratic one because it changed the ideological part of the 1960 Constitution. In the first place, the introductory Declaration that reflected the basic concepts of the socialist regime was eliminated from the 1960 Constitution. This Constitutional Act also reflected the change of economic system and the emphasis on private ownership and its protection. The previously existing provisions on the socialist economic system, systematic control of economy, forms of ownership and socialist division of labour were replaced by constitutional principles of property rights protection (art. 7). The Constitution also newly enshrined the principle of expropriation only in the public interest, on the basis of law and for compensation (art. 9 section 1), and the prohibition of misuse of ownership (art. 8). On the other hand, the Constitutional Act No. 100/1990 Coll. did not count with cooperative ownership and united agricultural cooperatives and thus anticipated their end. The transition to market economy was also reflected in article 13 of the Constitution that expressed the commitment of the state to create conditions and to set rules for the development and protection of business and economic competition. An important innovation was article 15 section 2 of the Constitution that enshrined that “The state aims at reaching ecological equilibrium by protecting the nature and taking care of creation and protection of the healthy environment as well as of careful utilization of natural resources.”

In relation to the previously mentioned changes, the amendment of the jurisdictional part of the Constitutional Act on the Czechoslovak Federation occurred and prescribed which issues related to ownership, business and disputes concerning business are in the jurisdiction of federation and which in the jurisdiction of republics.