In
the text, which is a transcript of his speech on the day of constitutionality
on 16 December 2021 at the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia
in Ljubljana, the author explains
how it came for the conscience to appear
in the Slovenian Constitution. Human as a person, as the bearer of his/her
personal dignity, is not subordinate to either the State or the Church. Apart
from our conscience, we are not originally committed to anything else. Only at the level of mutual relations or relations with the community, formulated at the
state level by the Constitution, a person is bound by (ethical) values and
legal (norms). In the 1988 "Writers’ Constitution”, the author included
in the preamble the sanctity
of life, human dignity, fundamental human rights and civil liberties; the text also speaks of freedom and conscientious objection, but there is no oath of conscience. This was the case in the "Demos
Constitution” of March 1990. In its Article 100, the "Podvin
Constitution” of August
1990 al- ready contains
the oath of the President
of the Republic and with it the text on conscience, which the author
established through confrontations with other members of the working
group, i.e.: "I will always
work according to my con- science”. In the current
Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia, such oath is contained in Article 104.
Key words: conscience, oath, Roman
Catholic Church, Constitution, Demos, state, Slovenia.