Constitutional changes and proposals for constitutional changes in the Czech Republic after the crisis in 2008

Kudrna, Jan (2017) Constitutional changes and proposals for constitutional changes in the Czech Republic after the crisis in 2008. Hungarian Journal of Legal Studies, 58 (2). pp. 155-176. ISSN 2498-5473

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Abstract

The article describes the impact of the 2008 global economic crisis on constitutional developments in the Czech Republic. The author does not focus only on monitoring the temporal coincidence of the submitted draft constitutional acts with the events known as the financial crisis, but also their direct substantive links with them. A temporal link is an insufficient criterion. The capital question is, if a causal link based upon a material aspect exists with regard to each specific example. From this viewpoint, the author suggests dividing proposals for constitutional changes in the Czech Republic into four categories described further in the article. The article tries to explain the Czech constitutional context and the very pro-active approach on the part of politicians to the text of the Constitution and proposals for its amendments, which are however seldom signed into law. The author reaches a general conclusion that the financial crisis itself did not lead to constitutional developments in the Czech Republic. On the other hand, the Czech Republic is undergoing a process (independent of the financial crisis) of the erosion of the political system and the system of political parties associated with a certain amount of public distrust in the traditional system of constitutional and political representations, with the emergence of requirements calling for the strengthening of elements of direct democracy and with the rise of new entities, often selfproclaiming them as being definitely not political parties, but non-political civic movements.

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