CYIL 2010

EMIL RUFFER CYIL 1 ȍ2010Ȏ any inconsistency between the contested provisions of the Treaty of Lisbon and the constitutional order of the Czech Republic. Concerning Part III, the Government took the view that the Constitutional Court should consider whether the petitioners were restricted by the principle of concentration, and stressed that from the perspective of the parties’ rights it would be detrimental for the proceedings to be constantly protracted by the submission of more and more supplements. As to the petition itself, the Government noted that the petitioners had omitted a systematic and comprehensive interpretation of the contested provisions, including those passages of the treaties which refuted their arguments. In light of the above, the Government was inclined towards the view that the petitioners’ claims in this part were clearly unfounded. Concerning Part IV, the Government observed that the Constitutional Court did not have the relevant jurisdiction to adjudicate on such an issue. It was impossible for the Constitutional Court to declare with any authority whether the petitioners’ claims were true or false. In these proceedings, the court may only review the compliance of international treaties with the constitutional order of the Czech Republic. The Government confirmed that the “Irish Guarantees” were an agreement of a governmental nature having an interpretive significance only, and did not change anything in the Treaty of Lisbon, as was clearly stipulated in the European Council Conclusions . 93 Finally, the government reiterated the previous responses it had made in proceedings before the Constitutional Court and stated that it considered the Treaty of Lisbon as a whole to be compatible with the constitutional order of the Czech Republic and that it negotiated the Treaty under this conviction. (iii) Position of the President The written observations of the President were delivered to the Court on 16 October 2009. They were divided into five parts, marked A to E. In Part A, the President welcomed the petition of the Senators and stressed the important task of the Constitutional Court to review the Treaty of Lisbon in its entirety, not only its selected components. In Part B, the President recapitulated his written observations from June 2008 (in the “Lisbon I” case) and boldly stated that he did not receive complete and convincing answers to the five questions he had raised. His first question concerned the sovereignty of the Czech Republic. In the President’s view, the Court “ avoided answering directly, and raised a new theory of sovereignty shared jointly by the European Union and the Czech Republic (and other Member States) ”. He further claimed that “ The term shared competence has been used relatively frequently recently, but only in non-rigorous debate. It is a contradiction in terms. Not only does our

93 Regarding this Decision, the Presidency Conclusions explicitly state that “ its content is fully compatible with the Treaty of Lisbon and will not necessitate any ratification of that Treaty ” [point 5 (ii), p. 3].

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