Czech senators complete Lisbon revision proposal for third time

Senators were criticised already when they filed their second completion during a public hearing last week.

Court chairman Pavel Rychetsky said the senators' procedure indicative of "obstruction."

"It is a very unusual procedural method," Langasek told CTK.

He added that it will not affect the Tuesday hearing at which the court will probably give its verdict.

Langasek said the senators want that the court do not apply the "Euro-conformist," but "authentic" interpretation of the constitution.

It is still very probable that the Constitutional Court will on Tuesday give its verdict on the Lisbon treaty.

The Czech Republic is the last EU country not to have ratified the reform treaty as yet.

The completion of the proceedings at the Constitutional Court is president Vaclav Klaus's last condition for signing the Lisbon treaty.

The last but one condition was met last week when an EU summit approved an opt-out from the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights for the Czech Republic that Klaus demanded.

He justified his demand by the fear that Sudeten Germans might claim property that was confiscated from them under Czechoslovak post-war president Edvard Benes's decrees.

The Constitutional Court did not find any discord between the Lisbon treaty and the constitution in the first examination of the treaty's key passages at the request of the Senate last year.

Most experts expect the court to issue a similar verdict this time. The judges did not ask representatives of the senators' group a single question.

The senators said last week they are considering another complaint with the Constitutional Court. They want to attack the way in which the court reached its verdict on the treaty.

Such an initiative would not, however, probably have much chance of succeeding.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz