CYIL 2010

EMIL RUFFER CYIL 1 ȍ2010Ȏ requests which, in the opinion of the Government, did not fall within the scope of competence of the Constitutional Court in these proceedings. Regarding Part A, the Government did not consider these provisions setting minimum numbers to be undemocratic, as the Senators had claimed. It is fully within the competence of the Parliament to set such limits. Moreover, such an initiative may also be presented to the Chamber by the respective “European” committees. In these committees a proposal may be initiated by each individual Member of the Chamber of Deputies or by a Senator. Consequently, the provisions in question definitely cannot be regarded as a “drastic limitation” of the right of initiative, as the petitioners had stated, let alone as an unconstitutional restriction. In its response to Part B, the Government emphasized that in accordance with the established case-law of the Constitutional Court, seeking concrete legal modifications from the Constitutional Court, the role of which is only that of a so called “negative lawmaker” (i.e., it may only annul legal regulations or their parts), is impermissible in these proceedings. It is solely within the competence of a legislative body (i.e., the Parliament) to introduce amendments to legal acts. As regards the requested modifications being a precondition for the completion of the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon, the Government rejected this argument. According to the Constitution, the ratification of an international treaty can be delayed only and exclusively in proceedings before the Constitutional Court in which the treaty’s compliance with the Constitution is being reviewed. This was not the case of the proceedings conducted on the basis of the complaint of 1 September 2009, which dealt with the annulment of selected provisions of the “Lisbon Amendment” to the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament. These proceedings therefore had no legal connection with the ratification process and should not be linked to it. (iii) Order of the Constitutional Court The Constitutional Court dismissed the petition as manifestly unfounded pursuant to Sec. 43(2)(b) of the Constitutional Court Act, stating that the arguments presented “do not attain a constitutional relevance; a conclusion confirming conflict with the constitutional order therefore cannot be made, and this is clear ‘at first sight’.” 83 The Court completely disregarded the pleadings in Part B of the petition as clearly inadmissible in this type of proceedings, since in its view the petitioners “regard the subject matter of the proceedings in an absolutely intolerable ‘loose manner’, as a place for academic or interpretative deliberations in their own self, disregarding the fact that proceedings before the Constitutional Court are still judicial proceedings.” 84 The Court thus refused to issue any declaratory statements on the assertions made in the petition, since within the remit of these proceedings it was only entitled to annul an Act or its selected provisions for conflict with the constitutional order – no more and no less. 83 Order of 6 October 2009, Pl. ÚS 26/09, para. 24. 84 Ibid., para. 14.

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