The ruling of the Constitutional Court of 10 September 2009 which repealed the proclaimed early elections to the Chamber of Deputies because of their alleged unconstitutionality fully manifests unjustifiability of the interference by the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic. The decision directly interfered with the process of democratic re-establishment of the Chamber of Deputies. At the same time, the Court´s intervention was only made possible by violating a number of constitutionally prescribed rules. Finally, the respective ruling could not be (...) issued without a “creative approach” on the part of the Constitutional Court towards the rules governing procedures before the Court. The approach eventually resulted in the violation of principles of fair trial – before a body that should guarantee them. The paper analyses in detail various individual aspects of the case, from general issues of the division of power and contents of the mandate of deputies to individual procedural stages before the Constitutional Court. (shrink)

The constitutional system of the Czech Republic, which is established on the principles of a parliamentary form of government, takes into account the possibility of dissolving the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic. The Chamber of Deputies is a chamber to which the government is accountable and this is the chamber in which the major part of the authority of Parliament is concentrated. Parliamentary systems have been also structured according to whether a certain amount of balance (...) of power is preserved between parliament and the government. A typical characteristic of every parliamentary form of government is the possibility for a vote of confidence in the government by parliament, meaning a dependency of the government on the will of parliament. Some parliamentary systems counterbalance this relationship with a greater or lesser possibility for the government of dissolving that chamber of parliament, which votes confidence in it. This makes it possible for the government to be able to more significantly fulfil the role of political leader in a given country and it can actively initiate and form a political state. (shrink)

Approximately twenty years after it was necessary to fight for human rights, the time came when it was necessary to do it again. Or to begin at the very least to protect them very strongly and thoroughly in a preventive manner. Other methods and means will revert to time when human rights were formally anchored but their material establishment is not yet realized, or not at least to the extent expected corresponding to their real substance. The beginning of the 90’s (...) in Central and Eastern Europe was a success in that human rights began to be looked on as natural, forming the basis of democratic State respecting the rule of law. Today we are increasingly more often encountering the reality that human rights, on the contrary, to the same extent that they have been able to be established, they are losing in value. The biggest danger consists in the fact that limiting of human rights often is attended by silence, without wider public discussion or deliberations. The lack of qualified discussion during the limiting of human rights by way of laws and implementing regulations is however a systemic problem. Correction of its results can be often very complex and doing away with the causes a long term effort. It is dependent on the quality of representative democracy and of the civil society as well. This article is devoted to problem of implementation of evidence of data accompanying telecommunications traffic, the so-called data retention, and in its development from lack of legal regulation to roughly unconstitutional legal regulation and finally to hope for a reasonably constitutional solution. (shrink)

The Czech Republic today belongs to the minority of European republics whose presidents are elected indirectly. It is a paradox that, even when direct election of the President has stable support not only of the majority of Czech society but also of the majority of parliamentary parties, this issue is constantly only discussed. Should direct election gain passage in the Czech Republic, there are formally better preconditions for this than there were in the past. With regard to the fact that (...) a change in the manner of the election of the Head of State hides in itself the potential to impact the functioning of the whole constitutional system, it is worth it to follow how this problem conceived in the Czech Republic. This article is devoted to the standing of the President of the Republic in the contemporary Czech constitutional system and to considerations about direct election from the year 1918 to the present. Attention is also devoted to the difficulties which it is necessary to come to terms with during a potential change in the manner of the election of the President if the current balance of powers between the constitutional organs is to remain preserved. (shrink)