The paper deals with the local referendum and assembly of municipality inhabitants as the forms of direct democracy under the conditions of the Slovak Republic. The paper pays the special attention to highlighting the legal and application problems connected with these institutions in the Slovak Republic. The problems are caused especially by the legal regulation which is terse in its content, unambiguous and essentially incorrect, what, in the end, influences the exercise of local self-government. The aim of the paper is to identify the position of local referendum and assembly of municipality inhabitants as the form of exercise of local self-government, along with other forms, through the analysis of respective scientific literature, legal regulations and other sources and I will try to highlight the specific lacks mainly in the legal regulation, to evaluate the situation and to provide some suggestions and solutions.

Keywords: local referendum, assembly of municipality inhabitants, municipal self-government, direct democracy