Czechoslovak Constitution of 1920

The Czechoslovak Constitution of 1920 was the first permanent constitution of Czechoslovakia, adopted by the National Assembly on 29 February 1920 and effective from 6 March 1920, ratified in the aftermath of the First World War. It established Czechoslovakia as a democratic republic, replacing the provisional constitution that had been adopted on 13 November 1918. Modelled on the constitutions of established democracies and shaped by the legal theorist Hans Kelsen's contributions to constitutional law, it created a parliament alongside a president and cabinet that shared executive power, underpinned by a multi-tiered judiciary. The system it introduced made interwar Czechoslovakia the most Western-style of the central and eastern European states on the eve of the Second World War. The constitution was repealed on 9 May 1948 following the communist seizure of power.