CYIL 2010

EMIL RUFFER CYIL 1 ȍ2010Ȏ and required a qualified “constitutional” majority of 3/5 of all Deputies (120 out of 200 in the Chamber of Deputies) and 3/5 of the Senators in attendance (49 out of 81 in the Senate, if all Senators were present). The procedure in the Chamber of Deputies consists of two readings, with a committee stage in-between. The first reading commenced on 19 March 2008 and then the Treaty was assigned to the following committees: Committee for European Affairs, Foreign Affairs Committee and Constitutional Committee. The Treaty of Lisbon was concurrently discussed in the Senate, where the procedure consists only of the committee stage and then a single reading. In the committee stage, the Treaty of Lisbon was discussed at the Committee for Foreign Affairs, Defence and Security (12 March 2008), the Committee for Affairs of the European Union (twice, on 2 April and 9 April 2008) and the Constitutional Committee (16 April 2008). The Treaty of Lisbon proved to be a politically controversial issue and attracted heavy criticism from the “euro-realist” or “euro-sceptic” members of the Senate, mainly for the alleged uncontrollable transfer of competencies to the EU, loss of national sovereignty, loss of veto power, expansion of qualified majority voting, harmonisation of criminal law etc. The Committee for Affairs of the EU adopted a resolution recommending that the Senate submit the Treaty of Lisbon to the Constitutional Court for a review of its compatibility with the Constitution. The plenary session of the Senate then discussed the proposal on 24 April 2008 and voted in favour of a constitutional review. 9 The “Lisbon I” proceedings could then begin. III. Review by the Constitutional Court (Lisbon I) The proceedings for the review of an international treaty before the Constitutional Court are governed by Sec. 71a et seq . of Act No. 182/1993 Coll., on the Constitutional Court (hereinafter the “Constitutional Court Act”). 10 Pursuant to Sec. 71c of the Constitutional Court Act, apart from the petitioner, the parties to the proceedings are, in all cases, the Parliament, the President and the Government. This is due to their specific role in the process of negotiating and approving international treaties. In the case of Lisbon I, the Senate was the petitioner, and the other Chamber of the Parliament (Chamber of Deputies) limited itself predominantly to a description of the procedure for debating the Treaty of Lisbon in this Chamber. 11 Therefore, I will 9 Resolution No. 379 of 24 April 2008. It is worthwhile mentioning in this context that the Senators for the Civic Democratic Party, the majority party in the ruling coalition government, voted in favour of the constitutional review of the Treaty. Among them was also the then Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs, Mr Alexandr Vondra, who presented and supposedly should defend the Treaty in the Parliament (he was a government minister and a Senator at the same time, which the Constitution, curiously enough, allows). The then Foreign Minister, Mr Karel Schwarzenberg (nominated by the Green Party), also a Senator, voted against the proposal. 10 This was the first review ever of an international treaty, before its ratification, by the Constitutional Court. Due to this fact there were a number of unclear legal issues which had to be addressed and clari fied by the Court. 11 The written observations of the Chamber of Deputies were submitted to the Court on 10 June 2009

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