The chapter on the SCC hence demonstrates that constitutional courts may develop their reading of constitutional identity in a reactive way. The lack of textual hooks in the text of the Slovak Constitution, combined with experience of political unrest, tradition of judicial minimalism, and dominance of separation of powers disputes in the SCC’s case law, eventually led the court to ground its approach to constitutional identity in the substantive core doctrine. This doctrine represents a reading of constitutional identity which aims at integrating democracy, human rights and the rule of law. We argue that locking in the principle of judicial independence became important both for the SCC’s self-preservation and for its understanding of the threats to the Slovak judiciary in general. Therefore, the government’s attempt to interfere in judicial independence via the security screening of judges spurred the court to quash several provisions of the constitutional act. However, in doing so the SCC also created a space for a pushback from the populist government, which demanded more accountability for the ‘non-democratic’ judiciary by curtailing the court’s formal powers in an accelerated procedure. This is important for the broader literature examining legislative reactions to judicialisation of politics.