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Out of balance

Pension woes add to growing demands for judicial reform

By Markéta Hulpachová
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
September 5th, 2007 issue

KURT VINION/THE PRAGUE POST
Weiszová fought for compensation for her mother (in photo), only to be told by the top court to start again.
When she talks about the legal battles she and her 64-year-old mother face to get her mother’s pension, Silvie Weiszová’s eyes start to well up.
Anna Weiszová worked for a Slovak employer in Czechoslovakia, which now makes her ineligible for a pension in the Czech Republic, her daughter says. As a Slovak-born Czech citizen living in Opava, north Moravia, Anna paid into the Czechoslovak social security system for more than 40 years. Because pensions in Slovakia are lower than here, Anna believes the Czech government now has an obligation to compensate her for the difference.
“She worked in Slovakia since the early 1960s,” Silvia says. “At that point, how was anyone supposed to know that the two countries would split up?”
Cases like Anna’s illustrate a growing problem: Government officials often threaten the effectiveness of the judiciary because they refuse to recognize court decisions.
After a series of unsuccessful appeals to the government, the Weisz family took Anna’s case to the country’s highest judiciary power — the Constitutional Court.
When two separate Constitutional Court decisions in 2005 and 2007 ruled in Anna’s favor, the rulings were meant to establish a legal precedent for hundreds of pensioners who worked for Slovak companies before the 1993 split-up of Czechoslovakia.
Instead, Labor and Social Affairs Minister Petr Nečas deemed the decision invalid, setting in motion an endless circle of court proceedings.
Experts say cases like Anna’s are not uncommon.
“It’s very alarming, but, in my experience, the decisions of the Constitutional Court are frequently not respected,” says defense lawyer Milan Hulík, whose past litigations include the highly publicized case of Vladimír Hučín, who was prosecuted for uncovering former secret police collaborators in the post-communist government.  
In an effort to restore the effectiveness of the Constitutional Court’s decisions, Justice Minister Jiří Pospíšil announced recently that he planned to reform the court as part of the government’s long-term agenda to improve the country’s ailing judiciary.
“An intensive discussion is currently under way about reforms of the decision-making process of the Constitutional Court,” Pospíšil says.
The Justice Ministry’s reform agenda includes provisions to decrease the number of judges in courts. It also allows the president to dismiss members of the court’s council.
“We have drafted a proposal that we intend to discuss further, because there is a whole group of opponents,” Pospíšil says.
Constitutional Court Vice Chairwoman Eliška Wagnerová is among those who oppose Pospíšil’s reforms.
“It’s not a question of any sort of organizational changes,” she says. “It’s a question of political culture and its devotion to the constitutional system.”
By placing the future of the court’s council members in the hands of politicians, the ministry’s proposal would undermine the council’s integrity, Wagnerová says.
“I find the suggestion laughable,” she says.
The general lack of respect for Constitutional Court decisions is caused by its short tradition in the national legal system, she adds.
“It is the court’s duty to protect the constitution, which should be regarded as a sort of legal bible. If politicians don’t respect the Constitutional Court, it means the entire system is unstable.”
Tensions around the effectiveness of the Constitutional Court date to the 1990s, when the so-called war of the courts pitted lower courts against Constitutional Court decisions.
“Over time, the lower courts grudgingly accepted the authority of the Constitutional Court,” Wagnerová says. “After 2000, this trend has shifted to politicians who think they have the right to overturn decisions with which they vehemently disagree.”
The Constitutional Court has been part of the Constitution since 1968, but an actual court was not created until after 1989.
“In Canada or the United States, just the atmosphere in the halls of the Supreme Court commands respect,” Hulík says. “By comparison, the Czech Constitutional Court looks like some small-town general court.”
According to Hulík, failure to recognize Constitutional Court decisions is partially caused by the appointed judges’ lack of experience.
“It used to be that these judges represented the Olympus of the judiciary — they were former dissidents and law professors, venerable characters at the height of their careers,” he says. “Lately, I’m surprised by the decisions behind these appointments.”
While the situation cannot be solved through government reforms, Hulík says a change is needed.
“The judiciary in general is in crisis, and the problems are only getting worse,” he says. “The entire judiciary stands and falls with the Constitutional Court.”
As government officials continue to poke holes in Constitutional Court decisions, the Weisz family’s faith in the judiciary dwindles.
Because of the Labor and Social Affairs Ministry’s decision to question the rulings, it is unclear whether pensioners like Anna Weiszová will ever receive compensation.
According to a letter from the ministry, the family must now wait for a decision from the Supreme Administrative Court, where the case first started.
“We thought the Constitutional Court’s decision would be final,” Silvia Weiszová says. “Now it has turned into this legal ping-pong. We don’t know what to expect.”
 

Markéta Hulpachová can be reached at mhulpachova@praguepost.com


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