Current Affairs Constitutional Court could give verdict on Lisbon in “one month to six weeks”
A group of right-wing Czech senators have filed a new complaint against the Lisbon treaty with the country’s Constitutional Court. The complaint looks set to further delay Lisbon ratification, and may leave the Czechs the last in Europe to approve the document. With eurosceptic President Václav Klaus threatening to hold up Lisbon ratification for as long as possible, there has been speculation that MPs may turn to the courts themselves in a bid to force his hand.
On Tuesday, a group of 17 Czech senators filed a new complaint against the EU’s Lisbon treaty with the Constitutional Court in Brno. The court has already rejected complaints made about certain passages in the reform document, but this time has been asked to look at the treaty as a whole.
With Ireland set to vote on Lisbon again this coming Friday, and the Polish president pledging to sign the document if Ireland says yes, this new legal complaint could leave the Czechs on their own in Europe delaying Lisbon ratification. But for just how long? Jan Kudrna is a Constitutional expert, he thinks the court will not drag its heels:
Jan Kudrna, photo: www.ct24.cz
“I suppose that we will have a decision in one month or maybe six weeks,
because last year it took about five months, I think, and this time the
situation is different. It is simpler for the Constitutional Court, because
the court decided on the main questions last year. So now there just remain
the minor problems.”
Prime Minister Jan Fischer, meanwhile, has said that a verdict could be up to six months in coming.
On Tuesday, former prime minister Mirek Topolánek warned that if the Czechs continued to stall Lisbon ratification, they could find themselves unrepresented in the next European Commission. But Senator Jiří Oberfalzer, who lodged this new complaint, shrugs off suggestions that his move could damage the Czech Republic in Europe:
Jiří Oberfalzer
“We could find ourselves in a difficult position internationally only if
it were true that free decision-making found itself punished by other
countries in the European Union. But I don’t believe that the European
Union is such a non-democratic institution, and so therefore I am convinced
that our complaint can’t do the Czech Republic any harm. We are using our
constitutional right to take the treaty to the Constitutional Court and
people have to respect this, because this is a standard procedure outlined
in the ratification process.”
The notoriously eurosceptic Czech President Václav Klaus can’t sign, and won’t sign, the treaty until the court has delivered a verdict. Even then, there is some speculation that he may want to put off ratification further, in the hope of a Conservative victory in next spring’s UK elections, and a British referendum on the Lisbon treaty.
On Tuesday, Czech newspaper Hospodářské noviny reported that President Klaus could find himself in court facing impeachment if he further delayed putting his signature to Lisbon, though Prime Minister Jan Fischer said he had no plans to instigate such a trial. Constitutional lawyer Jan Kudrna thinks that such a court case is, in all probability, highly unlikely:
Photo: CTK
“Political problems should be solved by political means, in my opinion.
We have in our Constitution the possibility of declaring, in both chambers
of Parliament, that the president is unable to fulfill his duties. Then his
authorities are taken over by the chairman of the house of deputies and the
prime minister. But, I am not sure that our politicians are strong enough
to start such proceedings, and I suppose that the president knows this fact
very well.”
So what is to be done, if the Constitutional Court approves the Lisbon treaty, to make President Václav Klaus sign the document? That is something that will most likely be discussed for weeks to come in Prague, and in Brussels.
