Abstract
One of the problems faced by high courts is to determine the limits of their own constitutional role. If a party declares that its fundamental rights are at stake, are there circumstances in which the courts should refrain from protecting those rights or at least refrain from protecting them to the optimum extent? Can there be situations where the court should refrain from declaring a law unconstitutional even if there are good arguments for it? This article presents three different views on judicial restraint.
The first is the institutional view, which is based on the principle of the division of power in the state. The second is the view of the rejecting judges as arbiters of values in society.
The third is the criticism of the position of judges in expert and ethical issues that the judges cannot know too much about the nature of the matter. All three views, in my opinion, have one thing in common - the potential to become relevant in the Czech legal environment.