Problems With the Affiliation of a Dysfunctional Municipality in Slovakia: The Law That the State Is Afraid to Apply

The submitted study addresses the restriction of the constitutional right of municipalities to self-government in Slovakia. This was caused by the implementation of a new institution into legislation - the affiliation of a non-functional municipality into another, neighboring municipality. The authors' goal is to offer an alternative solution to this new institution, which is ineffective in practice. When processing the issue of the institute of a dysfunctional municipality, a combination of analytical-descriptive and case research approaches was chosen. The methodology is based on a detailed analysis of the legal framework concerning the status and functioning of local government in the Slovak Republic. The empirical level of the study is represented by a case study of the municipality of Ondavka, which has been struggling with a state of objective dysfunction in recent years. Based on a comparison and analysis of how the problem has been solved in other European countries, the authors propose a solution for Slovakia – not the forced merger of municipalities, but the joining of smaller municipalities into larger, economically stronger administrative units.