Czech Republic: Insights from the Constitutional Court's Post-Transition Practice of Constitutionally Conforming Interpretation
Abstract
Constitutionally conforming interpretation represents a common doctrine in the Czech Republic, developed since the early 1990s, when Czechoslovakia and subsequently the Czech Republic transited to democracy. In addition to the restoration of the institution of Constitutional Court, it was the doctrine of constitutionally conforming interpretation enshrined directly in constitutional law which played an important role in the process of renewing the rule of law, guaranteeing the protection of fundamental rights.
The chapter will present the current approach to constitutionally conforming interpretation by the judiciary, both by the Constitutional Court and by other courts. In this context, the preservation of the model of concentrated constitutional review may be at risk should all ordinary courts be able to participate in the constitutional interpretive process.
Another important question is how extensively ordinary courts can apply constitutionally conforming interpretation against the letter of the law. Special attention in the chapter will be paid to the way constitutionally conforming interpretation was reflected on by the legislator in connection with the adoption of the new Czech Civil Code in 2012.
This fact opens up the topic of the relationship of constitutional rules to the principles and norms in private law, which is a topic that will have to be addressed by legal practice and which touches, among other things, on the issue of the limits of constitutionally conforming interpretation.