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On the paying of respects to the Constitution of Czech Republic

The Democratic Club is alarmed by the low level of respects paid to Czech Constitution and CR constitutional usage by some of the constitutional officials. Actions against the spirit and letter of the Constitution were seen also during the period of office of the former CR President Mr. Klaus, after the election of current President Mr. Zeman the tendencies strengthened significantly.
The President has paid an insufficient respect to the Constitution mainly by
refusing to appoint a Government based on a Parliament majority, which is contradictory to constitutional usage. He explains his action by an insufficient legitimacy of some of the Representatives. He appropriates this way the right to assess legitimacy of the Representatives´ mandate, short of having been directly neither indirectly given this right by the Constitution;
showing to be entitled to voluntarily postpone actions committed to him by the Constitution. Prime Minister Rusnok admitted already publicly that, his Government could remain in office until ordinary elections even in case of credulity refusal on the part of House of Representatives, which means over a term of almost one year. A circumstance is being employed here that, the Constitution does not require a definite term for a new Prime Minister’s appointment.
The President has this way changed the current political system from the parliamentary one into a presidential one, may be into a personal power type one. Presidential system as such is compatible with democracy, but the transition to it should be accepted by a necessary majority of Representatives of by a public referendum, if needed. Its introduction by one person’s decision is absolutely incompatible with democracy.
The President expressed his approach to the spirit and letter of the Constitution in a recent interview for German media. He stated, he is not entitled to change the Constitution, but he can change the usage. The Democratic Club standpoint refuses such an approach. Every legal act represents a unity of its spirit and letter and no individual is entitled to voluntarily change these.
The Democratic Club feels the current situation risky for Czech democracy’s future. They ask President Zeman therefore to pay respects to the Constitution and constitutional traditions of Czech Republic. They also appeal to the Representatives and Senators to consider suing the President for constitutional offence if no redress has been offered. They appeal to them, at the same time, to consider whether a Constitution offering such a wide freedom of interpretation corresponds to the maturity and political culture of today’s Czech Republic and whether it could not be proficient to replace it by a new text, introducing some limits to voluntary arrangements when explaining it.

Prague, August 3, 2013.

On personnel changes in the Institute for Study of Totalitarian Regimes  (ÚSTR)

The Democratic Club welcomed in their official position No. 22 of 2002 already, the proposal of Act on the Institute for Documentation of Totality. We expressed a conviction there that, “an impartial and well funded analytical processing only can enable the society as a whole to more deeply understand ways of functioning of oppressive components of the totalitarian Communist regime, thus creating presumptions for the effective settlement of an important area of the Communist past as well as minimizing the chance of a recidive of that.”

We are sure that the Institute for Study of Totalitarian Regimes (USTR),  founding of which took place later, did an immense volume of beneficial work in this spirit. We assume, even some mistakes could have been caused within the Institute´s activities over the years of existence. However, we are not in the position of accepting the mistakes being the reason for recalling the director and other significant members of the Institute. The changed political structure of the CR Parliament´s Senate and of the Institute´s Board of Directors seems to us to be a much more likely reason, as well as the coalition-forming intentions of the victorious Party, while, doubtlessly, interpretation of history in a democratic State should never depend upon election results. This conviction of ours is supported at the same time by the members of the Insitute´s scientific council resignation, most of who are noted for their scientific and moral integrity.

Opening of discussion on the question whether Communist regime was or was not totalitarian over the entire term of its existence can be assumed especially counter-productive, since a unified and universally accepted definition of totality does not exist. Doubtlessly, the regime was an oppressive one though hardness of oppression fluctuated, and it was a negation of democracy over the whole term of existence hence, worth of damnation.

Therefore, we call on the USTR Council to negate their decision of recalling the Director and to render it possible to continue activities of the Institute in the spirit of the Act 218/2007 Preamble, free of political deformations. As a primary and highly urgent a task, as the climate of recent weeks shows it, the protection of security forces archives from possible intrusions can be assumed as well as their introduction into public domain in their full integrity, in order to enable everyone interested to employ the data contained for their research, including scientists and historians whole the world over. The most efficient support of high-quality and independent research, hence of an impartial and multi-layer knowlege, can be secured by rendering access to well described, classified and most complete primary data to all the scientists wishing to work on these. It is the most efficient way, at the same time, of purporting satisfaction to the criticism of the Institute´s former Council in the sense of research having been neglected of some aspects of our society´s development over the periods of years 1938-1945 and 1948-1989. We also assume it our democratic right to re-present those outcomes we feel deformed, by all means.

Prague, May 7, 2013.