The Czech general election "won't take place until spring 2010"

15. 9. 2009

The early general election in the Czech Republic, which was to take place this autumn, will now probably not take place until the spring of 2010. The Czech Social Democratic Party decided on Tuesday 15th September not to support the motion to disolve parliament. The dissolution of parliament would have made it possible the general election to take place now.

The Social Democrats are afraid that more complaints could be presented to the Czech Constitutional Court, questioning the legality of the decision made by Parliament, which would lead to more delays.

Jan Musil, a Constitutional Court judge had warned that the current decision by Czech parliament to dissolve itself could be anulled by any Czech citizen who would send a complaint to the Constitutional Court arguing that the decision of parliament to dissolve itself is illegal.

According to the Constitution, the general election must take place a month before the end of the current Parliament. Its term expires on Thursday 3rd June 2010, so it looks as though the general election will take place in May 2010. In the meantime, the Czech Republic will probably continue to be governed by a caretaker government.

It has been confirmed yet again that the Czech Republic doesn't seem to have a reliable legal structure to enable it to run an early general election, if the current government loses a vote of confidence in parliament.

The Czech right-of-centre government coalition lost a vote of confidence in parliament in the spring of 2009. Since then the Czech Republic has been governed by a non-elected, caretaker government.

Further information in Czech HERE

Vytisknout

Obsah vydání | Pátek 26.2. 2010