Fair is fair: The Constitutional Court made a decision about unacknowledged coalitions or the story of a law that never applied
It would be a huge spectacle if the Constitutional Court suddenly cancelled the candidate list of the unacknowledged coalition "Stačilo!", possibly even in the case of SPD. The court's arguments are completely understandable, however, the tickle behind the ear that the election law in the passage about coalitions is just unnecessarily smeared paper was definitely confirmed at the highest instance, which does not speak altogether flatteringly about the character of the rule of law in the Czech Republic.
"It is completely understandable that the Constitutional Court did not cancel the candidacy of Enough! and SPD, which are "undeclared coalitions". When the electoral system of the Czech Republic was being established in the early 90s after decades of rule by one party, it counted on the possibility of candidacy of political parties or electoral coalitions of these parties.
However, legal reality has shown that it is now possible to run through "undeclared coalitions". This term was also used by the President of the Supreme Judicial Authority, Josef Baxa, at a press conference on the decision of the Constitutional Court. He argued in the same way.
The political competition has grown accustomed to the use of a joint list of candidates by parties, which allows them to circumvent electoral clauses (one party 5%, two parties 8%, three or more 11%). Parties, whose case was also dealt with by constitutional judges, are far from the first to bypass the electoral law.
For this reason, the Constitutional Court stated that the legal and factual reality is different from the intent of the law. Why did the situation get to court only now? The political struggle is certainly a factor in this matter, however, as Baxa himself stated, the Volt movement is such a marginal political force that it didn't even create any significant damage to Stačilo or SPD. The primary reason is that the pair of crafty undeclared coalitions have taken the gimmick with candidates to a new level.
While so far it was common to let non-party members or members of one party run for candidates (this is how the Pirates invited politicians from the Green Party to their candidates), on the SPD candidate list there are immediately three other parties that described themselves as a political alliance. This time Tomio Okamura did not use his recently favorite term patchwork, but otherwise the presentation of the new alliance did not differ in any way from the formation of a regular coalition.
Indeed, it is a matter of difference in quantity, and that is relative. Stačilo! has advanced even further, which is just an "election vehicle," as Baxa said, unlike the four-coalition SPD, it still operates under the SPD banner. The Constitutional Court then noted that in a coalition, the parties have the right to money for mandates, whereas without an official coalition, everything remains with the party that opens its candidate list. Which is quite a paradox for Stačilo!, which is not a real party.
"The result of today's negative resolution of the Constitutional Court on the complaints of Volt Czech Republic will be that before the next elections to the Chamber of Deputies, the number of unacknowledged coalitions will dramatically increase. What Stačilo! is doing today, everyone will do next time, because it is allowed,"
Attorney Tomáš Nahodil commented on the decision of the Constitutional Court on the X network.
In other words, he recalls that the legislation on electoral coalitions, which was the subject of a fairly tenacious legal and political battle even before the last elections, has proven to be almost unnecessary in practice. It can be solved by an agreement on the division of money for mandates. The law thus has less significance, like the maximum allowed speed on the highway, which is routinely exceeded (though it is a rarity, someone is occasionally fined for this violation).
It is undisputed that in elections, the voter decides and the sudden elimination of Stačilo!, but also SPD or Pirates, would fundamentally disrupt the voter's decision-making. But the electoral clauses were not created for the amusement of rabbits, as indicated by the name of our state, we live in a republic, not some kind of anarchistic community.
The clauses were therefore created to ensure that the Parliament has a number of parties that are capable of effectively representing their voters. That is, it provides at least basic political stability. For a long time, 5-7 parties sat here and the rest was filtered by the election clause. If the voter awarded each party 5% of the votes, 20 parties would sit in the Chamber of Deputies. It's not real, but even so, this situation would be clearer than what the unusually pronounced use of "undeclared coalitions" will allow.
If all parties succeed according to preferences, there will be only about 17 of them in the Chamber of Deputies, but a number of smaller subjects will have a minimum of representatives. Directly Enough! will have Daniel Sterzik as the chairman and that's exactly the situation the law was supposed to prevent.
if the court decides how I want = it's competent, otherwise = activist, incompetent
