Czechs will not ratify Lisbon prior to any 2nd Irish vote: Sunday Times

[people korps]

President is the only one who can ratify it!

President is a part of the executive under the Czech constitution.

President is sovereign as well. He is an elected representative of the people as are the MP’s. President is limited by the constitution, his best knowledge and his conscience. He is not limited by the Parliament.


He acts in line with the Czech constitution.


Except that majority of Czechs is opposed to Lisbon Treaty, the elected President supports the will of the people here.


Government’s position on international treaties could be interesting, but it is irrelevant. It is not government’s business. Topolánek’s position is the position of one of the 281 MPs.


Not a way, he has a lot of power including the power to ratify or not to ratify international treaties.


This applies for the legislature acts, not for the ratification of international treaties!


Both is correct.


True.

True.

True, but absolute majority of all Deputies is needed unlike without the veto.


Not true!


Really? How do you know it?


That’s nonsense. It’s up to the President to ratify the treaty.


Parliament never votes on ratification, that’s President’s business. Parliament could vote on granting assent to the President to ratify. President is not limited by the Parliament’s assent – he has the authority to not to ratify. It is not legal question, but a question of President’s political responsibility.


Article 62, letter “l”, but it is disputed.
The question is whether the Lisbon Treaty is a treaty concerning accession of the Czech Republic to the European Union.
President concludes it is because it replaces the Accession Treaty.


This applies only for the common legislature acts.


He supports the referendum on Lisbon Treaty, he even concludes it is a must under Czech constitution.
You are possibly confused because he is opposed to the General Referendum Bill, but that’s because he dislikes referenda on taxes, rights of minorities and similar issues. He even supports the referendum on the radar base in the Czech Republic.


He supports the EU as formulated in the Maastricht Treaty.


No, the Court is due to answer to the Senat’s appeal. There could be additional appeals of the Chamber of Deputies or of the President. There could be even another Senat’s appeal on different issues.


The Court must not rule this way. President needn’t ratify.


He is obliged by the Czech constitution to act in line with his personal opinions.


He doesn’t sign an instrument of ratificatition – it’s up to him to ratify.

That’s the platform on which he was elected! Actually, it’s even the platform on which the PM won the general election.


Only President can ratify.


Yes.

He needn’t resign. And he can’t be elected for the next period without a change in Constitution. (But the change is not unlikely, since there is discussion on direct election. Klaus is a natural favorite of the popular vote.)


He was forced to back the President against his will. His position is too weak.


As long as the international treaties are concerned, the President is the constitutional representative of the people, not the Parliament.

Wow. You certainly seem to have all the answers. However as Klaus worked for the state bank under the commies he was no dissident and Ganley is a man of privilage and gets all the access to free speech that he could hope for so wrong there to,
Please try and explain your dismissal of peoples views as we have no clue how you might be right /or wrong based on your style of posting.

[Myles_per_hour]

President is the only one who can ratify it!

President is a part of the executive under the Czech constitution.

President is sovereign as well. He is an elected representative of the people as are the MP’s. President is limited by the constitution, his best knowledge and his conscience. He is not limited by the Parliament.


He acts in line with the Czech constitution.


Except that majority of Czechs is opposed to Lisbon Treaty, the elected President supports the will of the people here.


Government’s position on international treaties could be interesting, but it is irrelevant. It is not government’s business. Topolánek’s position is the position of one of the 281 MPs.


Not a way, he has a lot of power including the power to ratify or not to ratify international treaties.


This applies for the legislature acts, not for the ratification of international treaties!


Both is correct.


True.

True.

True, but absolute majority of all Deputies is needed unlike without the veto.


Not true!


Really? How do you know it?


That’s nonsense. It’s up to the President to ratify the treaty.


Parliament never votes on ratification, that’s President’s business. Parliament could vote on granting assent to the President to ratify. President is not limited by the Parliament’s assent – he has the authority to not to ratify. It is not legal question, but a question of President’s political responsibility.


Article 62, letter “l”, but it is disputed.
The question is whether the Lisbon Treaty is a treaty concerning accession of the Czech Republic to the European Union.
President concludes it is because it replaces the Accession Treaty.


This applies only for the common legislature acts.


He supports the referendum on Lisbon Treaty, he even concludes it is a must under Czech constitution.
You are possibly confused because he is opposed to the General Referendum Bill, but that’s because he dislikes referenda on taxes, rights of minorities and similar issues. He even supports the referendum on the radar base in the Czech Republic.


He supports the EU as formulated in the Maastricht Treaty.


No, the Court is due to answer to the Senat’s appeal. There could be additional appeals of the Chamber of Deputies or of the President. There could be even another Senat’s appeal on different issues.


The Court must not rule this way. President needn’t ratify.


He is obliged by the Czech constitution to act in line with his personal opinions.


He doesn’t sign an instrument of ratificatition – it’s up to him to ratify.

That’s the platform on which he was elected! Actually, it’s even the platform on which the PM won the general election.


Only President can ratify.


Yes.

He needn’t resign. And he can’t be elected for the next period without a change in Constitution. (But the change is not unlikely, since there is discussion on direct election. Klaus is a natural favorite of the popular vote.)


He was forced to back the President against his will. His position is too weak.


As long as the international treaties are concerned, the President is the constitutional representative of the people, not the Parliament.

Thanks Wer for your reply. I would like to give a line-by-line response but unfortunately the idiotic system here means if I hit quote I only have your answers, which as they were replies to specific points and can only be understood by seeing what you are replying to, would produce a page of gobbledigook. (That is not your fault. It is the damned system that prevents multiple indents. Man but I hate this new system on p.ie!)

Regarding the President's ratification role, Article 63 gives that role to the President. Articles 10 and 10a require parliamentary ratification. What this means is that the ratification by the head of state is nominal, not activist. (We have the same here where it is the President who appoints the prime minister, but it is actually parliament that selects the person to be appointed.)

Article 63 (3) makes the government responsible for the president's executive acts in a range of areas, including treaties, with all decisions requiring counter-signature by the prime minister or a minister responsible to parliament. That is what is known as the principle of ministerial responsibility, so the President's hands are tied and what looks like a major power in reality can only be exercised through the government in a manner which reflects parliament's wishes. Article 67 makes the government, not the President, the supreme executive power, and Article 68 makes the government answerable to parliament.

The President's claim that Lisbon replaces the Accession treaty suggests he has little grasp of law. Accession Treaties are enabling treaties that bring the two primary treaties, Rome and Maastricht, into Czech law. Lisbon is an amendment of those treaties, not the Accession Treaty.

Legally international treaties must receive parliamentary sanction. The President cannot block them as such a block would require countersignature from a minister answerable to the parliament that had approved it.

The President is not, BTW, the representative of the people on international treaties. He is the representative of the Czech state, and executive authority is vested in the constitution in the government, not him.

If Klaus tried to block the treaty he would be breaching a series of constitutional articles. He would also be provoking a constitutional crisis akin to the dismissal crisis in Australia that surrounded Sir John Kerr. Those sort of crises are nicknamed 'nuclear crises' by political scientists and lawyers. The head of state or resident head of state never wins. All they do is destroy themselves, severely damage their office and usually end up in the end resigning or being removed from office. The Prime Minister had already announced that if the court rules in favour of the treaty he will be introducing the treaty into parliament early next year. So Klaus would put himself on collision course with parliament (where there is a clear cross-party majority behind it), the government (which backs it) and the courts. The constitution makes clear that while the president ratifies the treaty, he does so on the basis of countersignature by government, and cannot act independently in the area.

I meant to add in the relevant articles:

Art. 10
Promulgated international agreements, the ratification of which has been approved by the Parliament and which are binding on the Czech Republic, shall constitute a part of the legal order; should an international agreement make provision contrary to a law, the international agreement shall be applied.
Art. 10a
(1) An international agreement may provide for a transfer of certain powers of bodies of the Czech Republic to an international organization or institution.
(2) An approval of the Parliament is required to ratify an international agreement stipulated in Subsection 1 unless a constitutional law requires an approval from a referendum.

Art. 63
(1) President of the Republic shall furthermore
a) represent the State with respect to other countries;
b) negotiate and ratify international treaties; he may delegate the negotiation of international treaties to the Government or, subject to the Government consent, to its individual members;
c) be the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces;
d) receive heads of diplomatic missions;
e) appoint and recalls heads of diplomatic missions;
f) call elections to the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate;
g) appoint and promote generals;
h) confer and award state decorations, unless he authorizes other body to do so;
i) appoint judges; and
j) have the right to grant amnesty.
(2) President of the Republic shall be also entitled to exercise powers not explicitly defined in the Constitutional Act, if the law provides so.
(3) Decisions made by the President of the Republic pursuant to the provisions of paragraphs 1 and 2 shall be valid only if countersigned by the Prime Minister or by a member of the Government so authorized by the Prime Minister.
(4) Responsibility for a decision made by the President of the Republic, which must be countersigned by the Prime Minister or a member of the Government authorized by him, shall be borne by the Government.

It is Article 62 powers that the President has leeway with. The ratification power is via Article 63 which requires ministerial responsibility.

[wer]

…However as Klaus worked for the state bank under the commies he was no dissident and Ganley is a man of privilage and gets all the access to free speech that he could hope for so wrong there to…

One is not dissident for working or not working somewhere. That’s absolutely irrelevant. It’s as absurd as to say that Václav Havel was not dissident since he worked in a brewery.

A dissident is a person who dissents, a person who is publicly opposed to the doctrines of the establishment, a person who actively challenges the established policies and institutions.

This perfectly fits Ganley’s and Klaus’s position on EU policies, this also fits the activities of both Klaus and Havel under communism.

Regarding the President's ratification role, Article 63 gives that role to the President. Articles 10 and 10a require parliamentary ratification. What this means is that the ratification by the head of state is nominal, not activist. (We have the same here where it is the President who appoints the prime minister, but it is actually parliament that selects the person to be appointed.)

No, Myles, articles 10 and 10a are not about parliamentary ratification, it’s about parliament’s (or people’s) consent with the ratification. The President needs the consent for the ratification, but it is not legally binding for him (of course, it’s politically binding in some way, but that’s different problem).
The Parliament never votes on ratification, it always votes on granting consent to the ratification, that’s simply the constitutional practise since the year dot.

Article 63 (3) makes the government responsible for the president's executive acts in a range of areas, including treaties, with all decisions requiring counter-signature by the prime minister or a minister responsible to parliament. That is what is known as the principle of ministerial responsibility, so the President's hands are tied and what looks like a major power in reality can only be exercised through the government in a manner which reflects parliament's wishes. Article 67 makes the government, not the President, the supreme executive power, and Article 68 makes the government answerable to [COLOR="#ff0000"]Chamber[/COLOR].

Don’t project the constitutional usages from your country into the systems of other countries. Czech system doesn’t work this way.

The President is unaccountable under the Czech constitution, but because some actions call for the accountability, the constitutions conditions some of the powers of the President with the countersignature of the PM and transfers the accountability for these action to the Government. This is the purpose of the article 63.
This doesn’t affect the President’s decision making, only the validity of his decisions.
The constitution explicitly states that the President is limited solely by the constitution itself, by the law and by his best knowledge and conscience.
And the constitution also explicitly points out whenever the President (or anybody else) must to do something (e.g. He needn’t to dismiss a government which wants to resign, but he must dismiss the government which failed the confidence vote in the Chamber.)

We have even precedents on this. President Václav Havel refused to appoint an army general (Art. 63g) suggested by the Government of Václav Klaus, and nobody was able to change his decision. On the other hand, Prime Minister Václav Klaus refused to countersign an amnesty of Václav Havel (Art. 63j), and this particular amnesty has never come into effect.
Recently, the President Klaus refused to appoint judges (Art. 63i) suggested by the Government of Jiří Paroubek claiming there were too young for the function (all under 30), and even the two following Governments of Mirek Topolánek failed to force President to appoint the judges. Later, the President decided to appoint all the judges but one, but it was his decision.

The President's claim that Lisbon replaces the Accession treaty suggests he has little grasp of law. Accession Treaties are enabling treaties that bring the two primary treaties, Rome and Maastricht, into Czech law. Lisbon is an amendment of those treaties, not the Accession Treaty.

The article 10a states:

(1) An international agreement may provide for a transfer of certain powers of bodies of the Czech Republic to an international organization or institution.
(2) An approval of the Parliament is required to ratify an international agreement stipulated in Subsection 1 [COLOR="Red"]unless a constitutional law requires an approval from a referendum[/COLOR].

And the constitutional act 515/2002 Sb. (Sorry, I can provide a link to the Czech text, but not to an English one.) states that a referendum is needed for accession treaty to the EU. It also defines the accesion treaty as a treaty which codifies the conditions of the Czech Republic’s membership in the EU.
The dispute is whether the definition applies for the particular Accession Treaty which was ratified already or to any other treaty codifying the membership in the EU. The President concluded it is the latter case because it is written lower-case.
But as I have said, this is disputed. President presented this argument to the Constituional Court, and maybe, the CC could or could not rule on it tomorrow (today, actually).

The President is not, BTW, the representative of the people on international treaties. He is the representative of the Czech state, and executive authority is vested in the constitution in the government, not him.

President is the only elected representative entitled to negotiate and ratify the international treaties.
The proclamation that the Government is the supreme executive body is only nominal. The Government is not entitled to all the executive power, but only to the power explicitly granted to it by the law.
The power is separated into three branches (legislative, executive, justice), and every particular branch is shared by two constitutional institutions. The first (lower) one of the institutions is considered nominally the supreme one for this branch and is entitled to most of the powers, the latter (upper) one is supposed to control the first one and to limit its power in some important issues.
The legislative is shared by the Chamber and the Senat, the executive is shared by the Government and the President, and the justice is shared by the system of common courts and the special Constitutional Court.

If Klaus tried to block the treaty he would be breaching a series of constitutional articles.

No, that would be perfectly legal. The problem is with the legitimity, but that’s President’s political responsibility.

He would also be provoking a constitutional crisis akin to the dismissal crisis in Australia that surrounded Sir John Kerr.

Or akin in Czechoslovakia in 1948, that time the president yielded to the pressure of the communist PM Klement Gottwald and helped to establish the communist dictature.

The Prime Minister had already announced that if the court rules in favour of the treaty he will be introducing the treaty into parliament early next year.

That’s nonsense. The treaty was introduced to the Parliament long time ago.
In the Chamber it is in the first reading, and Senat waits with the first reading for the judgement of the Constitutional Court.
Prime Minister has no influence on it.

So Klaus would put himself on collision course with parliament (where there is a clear cross-party majority behind it)

Either on the collision course with the Parliament (which is not sure) or on the collision course with the people (which is sure).

the government (which backs it) and the courts.

First, the Government needn’t survive to the moment of the Parliamentary vote. It’s very likely to collapse because of the pressure of the opponents of the treaty. And second, it’s not Government’s business. This is only between the President and the Parliament.
The Court is entitled to rule out whether the treaty is in line with the constitution, but it is not allowed to promote any decision on it.

The constitution makes clear that while the president ratifies the treaty, he does so on the basis of countersignature by government, and cannot act independently in the area.

No, the constitution says only that the PM's signature is needed to make the Presidents decision valid.

[He3]

Thanks for all this wer.

[FutureTaoiseach]

Unfortunately, the Czech Constitutional Court has ruled the Treaty is in line with the country's constitution. However, the president has said is still not going to sign it until we vote for it (which we won't). And Dick Roche has told the Czech CTK news agency that a second referendum on the Lisbon treaty is "inevitable," adding that he hopes the whole process would not take more than a year.

[constitutionus]

interesting.

i hope someone sticks that to dick, in ireland he's still spoofing that the governement "hasnt come to a decision yet". essentially lying to the people through implication while setting out a time scale to czech journalists.

[CookieMonster]

interesting.

i hope someone sticks that to dick, in ireland he's still spoofing that the governement "hasnt come to a decision yet". essentially lying to the people through implication while setting out a time scale to czech journalists.

It's interesting, we have Cowen running off to mainland Europe once a week to talk about Lisbon, het he hasn't said a word to us here about it. Dick seems to be telling the teh Czech media more than he's telling us, (they knew more about what was going on while Klaus was here too, remember) and he's certainly telling them more than Minister Martin is telling us anyway with his " no decision has been made" and "we're considering a number of options" nonsense.

We know what is going to happen, we've know it since our rejection of the treaty was announced. We also know what we must do to ensure we are listened to this time.

[edifice.]

Might not be over just yet for the Cezch legal process.

Czechs can go ahead with Lisbon treaty ratification? | TEAM

Lisbon treaty may be partly contestable at Czech court again | TEAM

[jfk2008]

Unfortunately, the Czech Constitutional Court has ruled the Treaty is in line with the country's constitution. However, the president has said is still not going to sign it until we vote for it (which we won't). And Dick Roche has told the Czech CTK news agency that a second referendum on the Lisbon treaty is "inevitable," adding that he hopes the whole process would not take more than a year.

Well done the Czech Constitutional Court! Buy those lads a pint!

Now that it's been found to comply with the Czech constitution, Klaus has no excuse, other than his own personal opposition, not to participate fully in the ratification process.

It'll be interesting to read the full judgement when it becomes available: I hope it gives the lie to some of the claims made about the Treaty of Lisbon.

[evercloserunion]

Can you imagine if the Czech president refused to sign it now, completely spitting in the face of his own country's constitution. I'm sure nobody here would want that.