The Prague Post
December 5th, 2008
Prague Property

Corridors of Power

Judicial freedom?
Forget it!

By Dinah A. Spritzer
9th December, 2004


President Vaclav Klaus has bestowed Banana Republic status on the Czech Republic by doing something presidents in democratic countries are not supposed to do: He criticized the decision of an independent court.

It so happens that the court made a ruling that went against the right-wing Civic Democrats (ODS), the party Klaus headed for 13 years.

The Supreme Administrative Court on Dec. 3 invalidated last month's Senate elections for the Prague 11 seat. The court agreed with a complaint from a Christian Democratic candidate who said voters were unfairly influenced by slanderous town-hall bulletins accusing him of preferring his private interests to his public post. The candidate then narrowly lost the first round of the election to an independent, who was then defeated in a run-off by the ODS candidate.

Klaus, who reportedly never read the court verdict, called the court decision a "precedent that intervenes in political freedom."

The problem is that a president who even hints that the judiciary is not to be abided by erodes the rule of law, something that is taken pretty seriously in these parts.

Hence the reaction of Lubomir Zaoralek, a Social Democrat and chairman of the Chamber of Deputies: "The president has challenged one of the pillars of [democracy], the rule of law. Politicians, and even less so constitutional officials, should not enter into polemics with independent courts. The president has challenged the verdict without knowing the justification for it. He therefore acted hastily and irresponsibly."

The Supreme Administrative Court's decision marks the first time the post-1989 judiciary has invalidated an election, although as Prime Minister Stanislav Gross points out, election law allows for "such a corrective tool."

One wonders what Klaus would do if he were on the Ukrainian election commission right now. (Stuffed ballot boxes are OK, but use of physical force would render voting invalid?)

Reached on his mobile phone, Klaus' spokesman, Petr Hajek, was fighting off the urge to elaborate on Klaus' objections, which the president voiced at the Dec. 4-5 ODS party conference in Prague.

"I think the president was saying his civic opinion. It was a very strong and serious opinion," he said. "I can't say anything more. In my opinion, well, I guess my opinion doesn't matter. Nope, nothing more. Well, it's not really a scandal because it's an unprecedented ... nope, that's it, that's all I'm saying."

Fortunately, for entertainment purposes, Klaus is not so self-censoring.

Following the Prague 11 hubbub, he stirred more controversy by announcing that recyclable plastic bottles, snowboards and backpacks are "attributes of leftism," according to Lidove noviny.

Klaus apparently made this pronouncement after he was offered water from a recyclable plastic bottle before a recent interview with Czech Radio.

"I consider these three attributes to be certain expressions of a personal philosophy, and I could name 50 others," he purportedly harangued. Like maybe marijuana, Volkswagen beetles and Rastafarian hairdos? Remember, this is the president who as prime minister in the 1990s informed the public that jean jackets were an incomprehensible fashion faux pas that he deemed to be "extremely false."

What has not been properly analyzed is whether Klaus, an avid skier, is really just mad that snowboarders now dominate the slopes.

And for the love of journalism: Czech Radio staffers, get some manners and offer the president of the country a glass, not a plastic bottle!

Dinah A. Spritzer can be reached at dspritzer@praguepost.com




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