Brief History of Chamber of Restorers, Slovak Republic
The Chamber of Restorers was established on September 1st 1994 by the Law of the National Council of the Slovak Republic No. 200/1994 Collection of Law about the Chamber of Restorers and the Execution of the Restoration Activity of its Members, as a so called professional chamber with compulsory membership, which has the task to gather physical persons executing the profession “restorer” in the area of the Slovak Republic. The seat of the Chamber of Restorers is in the capital of the Slovak Republic, Bratislava and it operates within the whole area of the Slovak Republic.
The essential mission of the Chamber of Restorers is to act as public authority in two main areas.
The first area is the authority of the chamber to decide about the ability to execute the liberal profession “restorer” in the relevant specialisation of restoration and for that purpose to keep the list of its members. The chamber in this area of its activity has the position of public authority which decides about which natural person in which specialisation of restoration will carry out business activities in the area of the Slovak Republic in the field of restoration activity on national cultural heritage and collection items of works of art.
The second area is the realisation of the chamber’s law duty to continuously monitor that its members carry out their profession in accordance with the professional, expert and ethical principles and rules which are related to the execution of the liberal profession “restorer”.
For this purpose the law entrusted the chamber on one side with the authority to issue internal (corporative/professional) rules which are legally binding for its members and on the other side it accredited the chamber with disciplinary authority over its members, which manifests in the chamber’s right to impose disciplinary measures on its members (written warning, monetary fine, or deletion from the list of the members of the chamber) in cases when they have committed misconduct fulfilling the features of disciplinary offence.
Besides these two areas in which the Chamber of Restorers as the authority of the so called interest self-government fulfils tasks in the field of public administration from the position of its executor, its duty is also to promote and protect the rights of the professional, social and economic interests of its members, as well as to protect the professional honor of its members.
The task of the Chamber of Restorers is also to cooperate with the providers of the university level education with restoration specialisation in the area of the Slovak Republic and to propose measures leading to improvement of the quality of the education in this field and the preparation for the profession restorer.
The Chamber of Restorers in the interest of providing the highest possible protection and the widest accessibility of the cultural heritage to the public cooperates with the government bodies, local self-government with the domestic and foreign partner professional chambers and professional associations acting in the field of restoration activity and activities related to the restoration activity. As a result of its long-term activity in the area of cooperation also on the European level the Chamber of Restorers in the year 2005 became a full member of the European Confederation of Conservator-Restorers´ Organisations – E.C.C.O. which acts as an international body gathering professional organisations from the member states of the European Union and the EEA which is also a permanent specialised partner of the European Commission and the Council of Europe in the area of the protection and restoration of European objects of cultural heritage.