Czech press survey - March 6

The president is not a sovereign, he is entrusted by people to use the powers as well as fulfil the duties which he promises in his oath, Fischer writes.

He says Klaus was taking use of the relatively vague formulations of the constitution throughout his presidency and he was behaving as if it were him who is founding an entirely new tradition of the post.

He pretended as if it were him who determines what the rules mean and how they should be interpreted, Fischer writes.

It is, however, unfortunate that people have connected the assessment of the president´s deeds by democratic rules with the emotional word treason, Fischer writes.

Though, what other word should be used to describe such a behaviour where someone is wittingly toying with the constitution because he thinks that nothing can happen to him? Fischer asks.

The judges of the Constitutional Court (US) did not want to find themselves in the absurd situation where they would abolish the presidential decision to halt criminal proceedings going on for more than eight years and carrying a maximum of ten years in prison [that include a number of high-profile corruption and fraud cases], but not its disastrous consequnces, Jiri Leschtina writes elsewhere in Hospodarske noviny.

The US dismissed a senatorial proposal to abolish the respective article of President Vaclav Klaus´s New Year´s amnesty earlier this week.

Leschtina writes that Klaus has shown people what terrible things can be done with the above article of the amnesty.

That is why lawmakers should now better abolish the whole amnesty. The next and any other president may repeatedly assure people that they will not abuse the amnesty, that they will not grant any, but the temptation will not disappear, Leschtina writes.

To file a treason complaint against President Klaus with the Constitutional Court is absurd, yet Klaus has committed one "crime" during his presidency several times, Martin Komarek writes in Mlada fronta Dnes.

The crime is called rape in the abstract sense of the word, a rape of the spirit of the Czech constitution, he writes.

A way towards rectification of the current situation is to rewrite the constitution, but this is not entirely necessary. The politicians of parties in parliament have enough powers to show the head of state where the Castle (presidential seat) ends and where real Power starts, Komarek writes.

But to attain this, they would have to act democratically, with dignity and in unity, Komarek writes.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz