Publication details
The Czech Constitutional Court: The inconspicuous constrainer
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Compared to its Central European counterparts, the Czech Constitutional Court (CCC) represents an interesting example of a court spared from the executive capture by a (populist) government. This chapter argues that part of this resilience comes down to selective, self-constrained behaviour of the Constitutional Court. While being a crucial actor of the democratic transition in the early 1990s, the CCC typically left a wide margin for compliance to the political sovereign. Drawing on the JUDICON-EU data, the chapter explains how the combination of procedural constraints (high voting quorum and supermajority in constitutional review) made frequent heavily constraining rulings in politically and socially salient topics unlikely. Instead, activist judges started relying on a less direct method of constitutional requirement (binding constitutionally conform interpretation of reviewed legislation) both in constitutional review and individual petition cases. In hindsight, this technique might have helped to shield the CCC from strong political backlash. |