The February Constitution

JAN 01 1920 · 12:00

The opening of the first elected Czechoslovak parliament, the institutional successor to the Revolutionary National Assembly that ratified the constitution on 29 February 1920. Place: Revolutionary National Assembly, Rudolfinum Figures: Alfréd Meissner, drafter · Jiří Hoetzel, drafter · Antonín Švehla · the Revolutionary Assembly (256 deputies, no Germans or Magyars seated) The Revolutionary National Assembly, seated in the Rudolfinum on the Vltava embankment (its concert hall converted for the purpose), has been working since November 1918 with a provisional constitution of fourteen articles. By February 1920 a permanent text is ready. The drafting is led by Jiří Hoetzel of the Charles University law faculty, with revisions by the Social Democrat Alfréd Meissner. They borrow from the French Third Republic, the American federal system, and the Weimar draft then nearing completion in Germany. The vote is taken on February 29, a leap day, a date that will not recur for four years. Some deputies note this aloud; nobody changes their vote because of it.