Slovakia: Legally compliant whistleblowing in your company - country update in Slovakia

In Slovakia, Act No. 54/2019 Coll. on the protection of whistleblowers of socially harmful activities will take effect on 1 March 2019. This new law has replaced the previous law that regulated the basic framework for the protection of whistleblowers of socially harmful activities in the Slovakia. The objective of adopting this new law was to deepen and expand whistleblower protection and make it more effective, among other things by establishing the Office for the Protection of Whistleblowers, expanding the concept of serious socially harmful activity, amending the concept of reporting, clarifying the regulation of the protection granted, etc.

At the time, the establishment of the legal framework for the protection of whistleblowers made the Slovak Republic one of the ten EU Member States whose legal systems had consolidated statutory regulations for the protection of whistleblowers.

As regards Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2019 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law (“the Whistleblowing Directive”), the Slovak Republic did not properly transpose this directive into its legal system by the specified date.

The proper transposition of the Whistleblowing Directive is the objective of the above-mentioned law’s amendment, which is currently in the midst of the legislative process but has not been passed yet. For example, the amendment is supposed to extend the protection to individuals who report breaches of Union law, expand the definition of whistleblower, expand the duties of employers, etc.

Autor: Gabriela Janíková