According to them, Klaus would act against the spirit of the Czech constitution if he refused to sign the Czech president to stay in hospital after surgery until next week ...
Czech regional, Senate elections to take place in autumn 2008 ... treaty approved by parliament. Experts say that such a step would be very problematic and that they can only imagine it in really exceptional situations and not when an international agreement of this type is concerned. "The parliament's approval means a recommendation to ratify the document.
If Klaus did not do so it would certainly be problematic from the constitutional and legal standpoints," constitutional law expert Vaclav Pavlicek told CTK. The president can express his doubts about the treaty in the course of the constitutional process by asking the Constitutional Court to review it. However, the Senate has acted more quickly than Klaus and sent the Lisbon treaty to the Constitutional Court for the assessment at the end of May. Klaus then said that a comprehensive assessment of the Lisbon treaty by the Czech Constitutional Court was "the absolutely crucial precondition for its [Czech] ratification." The Constitutional Court is assessing whether the Lisbon treaty is in harmony with the Czech law at the request of the Senate that was initiated by the senior ruling Civic Democrats (ODS) of which Klaus is honorary chairman. Jan Kysela from the Charles University Law Faculty told CTK that "formally" Klaus had the right to refuse to sign the treaty but given the role of the head of state in the constitutional and political system he should use this right only in extremely exceptional cases, for instance, in the case of a war with the other contractual party, and not due to doubts over the constitutionality of the treaty. According to Zdenek Jicinsky, senior opposition Social Democrat (CSSD) constitutional expert, it is practically unthinkable for Klaus to oppose the ratification of the treaty once it is approved by the parliament. "The president is part of a certain system of constitutional bodies and it would thus be very strange if he finally put resistance and said 'I would not ratify this.' I cannot imagine such a situation," Jicinsky said. If President Klaus refused to sign the Lisbon treaty it would be possible to consider whether by his approach he fundamentally undermined the Czech Republic's position in the international community and the Senate could accuse him of high treason for this, Kysela said. Another possibility is the president's resignation in the event that he would be alone in his position, Kysela said. However, the experts and head of the Chamber of Deputies foreign committee Jan Hamacek confirmed to CTK that Klaus's signature of the Lisbon treaty was absolutely indispensable for its ratification. Previously, Constitutional Court chairman Pavel Rychetsky expressed the same position. "According to the Czech Republic's constitutional order, the ratification of the treaty cannot be legally completed without the president's signature," Rychetsky said in a letter responding to Klaus's request from February 2005 on the constitutional review of the original European constitution. Speculations on Klaus's approach to the treaty if he received it for signature appeared recently in connection with his statement in which he welcomed the fact that the Irish rejected the Lisbon treaty in a referendum last week. Klaus called the rejection "the victory of freedom and reason over artificial elitist projects and European bureaucracy." "Politicians have allowed the citizens to express their opinion only in a single EU country," Klaus noted, referring to the fact that Ireland was the only country ratifying the treaty in a referendum, not in parliament. "The Lisbon treaty project ended today with the Irish voters' decision and its ratification cannot continue," Klaus wrote on his website. Czech government representatives said in reaction to the Irish "no" that it definitely was a complication, but it did not threaten the standard functioning of the EU. The Czech Republic has not yet ratified the treaty. It is not clear whether it would further proceed with the ratification process.
(Ceske Noviny)
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