The thesis deals with the decision-making practices of the Czech Constitutional Court in matters of taxation. The first chapter serves as an introduction to the topic of taxes and their different types, pays attention to the distinction between taxes, fees and other similar payments, and outlines the constitutional foundations on which taxes in broader sense may be imposed. The following section discusses the role of the Constitutional Court, mentions the types of court proceedings related to the field of taxation, and distinguishes between the court review of questions with constitutional law relevance, which the Constitutional Court examines, and of matters of ordinary law without such relevance, which are left to the general courts. The importance of the decision-making agenda of the Constitutional Court and the binding nature of its decisions for different groups of subjects and in different type situations is outlined. The third section then proceeds to analyze the important constitutional principles that are common for the field of tax law, namely the prohibition of genuine ex post facto legislation, and conversely the general permissibility of perceived retroaction, the principle of imposing taxes solely on the basis of law, and the use of the in dubio mitius principle, which is a...

Magister Legum - LLM / The 1996 Constitution of the Republic of South Africa is the supreme law of the Republic and in enjoying this status it is prescribing the composition of the three different arms of government as well as each branch’s status within the new constitutional dispensation. Prior to this era of constitutional supremacy South Africa was subject to the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, an era where the courts could only challenge legislation on procedural grounds, but had no general power to declare legislation unconstitutional. The Constitution further provides for a separation of powers between these arms of government, and it has vested the judicial authority in the courts and conferred strong judicial review powers upon the Constitutional Court. The head of executive has recently argued that “the powers conferred on the courts cannot be regarded as superior to the powers resulting from a mandate given by the people in a popular vote”. The preceding quote is one of many statements and claims that forms part of a national debate on the nature and scope of the Constitutional Court’s powers in South Africa. The Constitutional Court has in recent years handed down judgments that were not favourable to the legislative and executive arms of the South African government. These judgments are evident in the existing and on-going tension between, the three arms of government.

This study examines the process of establishing and building the new South African Constitutional Court as the first intervention in the development of the Constitutional Hill precinct and as part of an endeavour aimed at creating a new national identity. The argument is reliant on the premise that an agency, in this case the judges of the constitutional court, actively seeking out means of transforming space and place and transferring significances in heritage resources, has contributed self-consciously in the process of social transformation. The study is intended to be descriptive of a social reality and explanatory of a special atypical case. Pierre Nora's seminal concept involving lieux de mémoire, their spatial and material potential, and the means by which lieux are formed and retained as lieux (memory objects/vessels/vestiges of heritage) has framed this study. The premise that space and place embodies and transmits concepts of cultural heritage has inspired ongoing and complimentary theories of the ways in which the built environment manifests narratives of power and the role of place in memory. Nora's lieux are social creations often involving built form and it is clear that historically significant built form can be used in social endeavors which contribute to the creation of a society's identity. Research and analysis of the Constitutional Court archive, selected published critique, examination of the artefact itself and by means of interviews with key professional individuals who participated in the programme of the building of the new Constitutional Court, all contribute to an exposure of the process of the endeavour of the judges of the Constitutional Court to establish a “lieux of cultural identity”.

The topic of the thesis "Participatory rights of the child in case law of the Constitutional Court" is a specific complex of rights guaranteed to the child by the constitutional order of the Czech Republic and international treaties, especially the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The child has been viewed as a particular rights subject only in recent decades when the Constitutional Court rejected the idea of a child being an object of other's decision and granted children the status of a subject and a participant in proceedings. Participatory rights are an important set of children rights and can be summarized as the right to be informed about proceedings, the right to express opinions, the right to be notified about the decision of proceedings. The thesis aims to present children rights of participation from the point of view of constitutional law, to focus on the development of the judiciary of the Constitutional Court, and subsequently to compare it with Czech and foreign literature. The first part of the thesis deals with the theoretical definition of the development of the position of the child from the nineteenth century to the present, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its principles, as well as general participation rights in international and national law. The thesis...

Constitutional Court: Negative Legislator? Abstract This diploma thesis deals with the question whether the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic can be considered as a mere negative legislator in connection with deciding on proposals for annulment of laws or their individual parts according to Art. 87 par. a) of the Constitution or whether the Constitutional Court departs from this position and how. The diploma thesis is divided into theoretical and practical part, while the author seeks to rely mainly on the actual decision-making practice of the Constitutional Court. In the theoretical part, the thesis deals with the concept of the negative legislator and its origin in the ideas of Hans Kelsen. Kelsen's concept of constitutional justice as a negative legislator is presented. In the following subchapters, the theoretical part is devoted to acquainting the reader with the decision-making of the Constitutional Court on petitions to annul laws or their individual parts. The thesis also describes the binding of judges in decision- making and their binding for other subjects. In the practical part, the thesis is divided into six individual chapters, each of which deals separately with one type of decisions that the Constitutional Court deviates from its position as a negative legislator. In each chapter...

The Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic is incorporated in the system of the supreme state authorities and is responsible for the protection of constitutionalism. The aim of the thesis is to evaluate the role of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic in the political system of the Czech Republic on basis of delimitation of function thereof, and of basic relations to other state power bodies. The subject matter of the first part of the thesis is characteristics of the constitutional justice and the significance thereof in a democratic constitutional state. This interpretation also includes comparison of two principal models - a diffusion model, and a concentrated constitutional justice model. The basic idea of the thesis is to explore the characteristic position of the Constitutional Court between the law and the politics, it deals with political aspects of constitutional justice. The thesis is based on constitutional approach and aims to answer the question of how much the relation of the Constitutional Court towards the politics is determined by the system (institutionally, functionally). The main part of the thesis analyzes incorporation of the Constitutional Court into the system, the position of the Constitutional Court as an independent body of judicial power, and the relations...

Proceedings on the repeal of an Act before the Constitutional Court, with focus on the review of whether the Act was adopted in the constitutionally prescribed procedure Abstract The thesis deals with the judicial control of constitutionality with a specific focus on the review of the constitutionality of the legislative procedure. The first part of the thesis deals with the general definition of the constitutional judiciary, the position of the Constitutional Court in constitutional system of the Czech Republic and the definition of basic concepts that must be unconditionally known for the next parts of the thesis. The first part of the thesis concludes with a reflection on the topic whether the Constitutional Court really maintains its role as a predominantly negative legislator. In the second part, the thesis focuses on the description of the current legislation on court proceedings of the repeal of an Act or its individual provisions. The main topic of the second part of the thesis deals are the special effects of the decisions of the Constitutional Court in this type of proceedings and the question about binding nature of its reasoning. The author describes, for example, the specific effects of these decisions in horizontal relations or their effects on the specific proceedings from which the proposal...

CONSTITUTIONAL REVIEW OF THE LIMITS OF POWERS OF THE EU IN THE CR AND GERMANY (THE LISBON TREATY AND FURTHER DEVELOPMENT) The purpose of the thesis is to analyze the case-law of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic and the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany relevant to the question of the relationship between Union law and national law, paying attention especially to the problematic area of ultra vires review claims, ie to the right of the constitutional court of a Member State to take the final decision whether an act of any European institution exceeds powers that have been transferred from the Member States to the EU according to the Treaties. The thesis consists beside introduction and conclusion of four chapters. Chapter one introduces the key provisions of the national constitutions both in Germany and in the Czech Republic, which allow to the Member States to delegate some of their sovereign powers to the EU. Chapter two deals with earlier decisions of both constitutional courts regarding the matter of EU law (before the Lisbon judgement) and points out the leading premises which were most important for the future development of the case-law on relationship between Union law and national law. Chapter three provides an analysis of three judgements on the Treaty of Lisbon (the Lisbon...

(abstrakt v anglickém jazyce) The main contents of this dissertation (diploma paper) is a study of jurisdiction of The Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic and of The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany and their comparison. The first part of this work describes in brief the genesis of the constitutional jurisdiction and its two basic types. Afterwards there is characterized the constitutional jurisdiction in Germany and in the Czech Republic and next there is described legal regulation and organisation of the German and Czech constitutional courts. Further I deal with the jurisdiction of constitutional courts (of european continental type) in general. In the second part of this work, first I give a general idea about jurisdiction of the German and Czech constitutional courts. After it I already deal with analysis of their single, selected competences - in the concrete: regulation control (judicial review), constitutional complaint, judicial review of international conventions and questions of jurisdiction. I have not focused on the other competences, which the both constitutional courts dispose of. Firstly there is no need to analyse them for the sake of insight into the problem, secondly there should be kept adequate range of this work. The third part results from the analysis of the...

I Europa finns det flertal exempel på länder där den politiska makten utnyttjat sin maktposition, vilket har resulterat i ett lidande för befolkningen. Många länder och dess medborgare har varit utsatta för diktaturstyre, maktmissbruk och kränkningar av mänskliga rättigheter. En konstitution kan fungera som ett medel för att garantera medborgarna vissa fri- och rättigheter samt att begränsa den styrande makten från att kränka de värderingar som är tänkta att prägla samhället. Den mest grundläggande författningen i ett rättssystem utgörs av en eller flera grundläggande författningar, dessa grundlagar anger riktlinjer för vilka värderingar och normer som ska styra samhället. Grundlagen, konstitutionen eller statsförfattningen ska tillförsäkra en normgivande funktion i ett rättssystem genom att reglera bland annat bestämmelser om sin överordnade ställning. Den överordnade ställningen innebär att den genom sina stadganden ska vägleda den lagstiftande makten till att anta lagar som är förenliga med grundlagen. Konstitutionen kan också tillförsäkra alla medborgare deras rättigheter att delta i det politiska rummet, genom att föreskriva grundläggande värderingar som tillförsäkrar att minoriteters rättigheter garanteras. Ett viktigt element i konstitutionalismen är just att begränsa att en politiskt vald makt inte ska kunna ändra på grundläggande författningar som enbart syftar till att gynna majoritetsåsikter i landet. Däremot finns det inga krav på vilka värderingar som konstitutionen ska föreskriva, ett lands författning kan vara god eller ond och tillförsäkra medborgarna skilda rättigheter och binda landets lagstiftande makt på olika sätt. Bosnien och Hercegovina (BiH) är ett land som grundar sig på en konstitution som landet själv inte har författat. Konstitutionen är unik eftersom den är skapad av omvärlden i samband med Dayton Peace Agreement med syftet att bygga upp en stat som ska tillförsäkra fred och rättvisa. Sverige däremot är ett land som har en lång tradition av fred och ett stabilt välfungerande samhälle, ett land där den politiska makten verkar med folkets förtroende. Konstitutionen har historiskt sett inte haft en stark ställning i Sverige och behovet av att begränsa den politiska makten har inte alltid varit en prioritering. För att försäkra konstitutionens genomslag i ett land och att den efterlevs av den lagstiftande makten krävs det någon form av kontroller som kan tillförsäkra konstitutionens effekt. Kontrollerna kan göras i form av preventiv normkontroll som utövas innan parlamentet antagit en lag och ett system av efterhandskontroll av redan antagna lagar. Båda formerna av kontroll utövas i BiH och i Sverige. I BiH utövas den preventiva normkontrollen av The Constitutional Legal Commitee (Ustavnopravna Komisija), vilka granskar alla lagförslag och andra juridiska akter under lagstiftningsprocessen i parlamentet. I Sverige finns ett liknande organ, Lagrådet som på begäran av regeringen eller aktuellt riksdagsutskott uttalar sig om ett lagförslags grundlagsförenlighet innan lagen ska antas av riksdagen.  Utöver den preventiva kontrollen finns det även en möjlighet att genomföra efterhandskontroll av lagarnas grundlagsförenlighet i länderna. I BiH har författningsdomstolen ensam kompetens i att utöva den konkreta normkontrollen och har möjlighet att kräva en ändring av en lag eller att kräva upphävning av en rättsakt som bedömts vara oförenlig med den nationella konstitutionen. I Sverige utövas den konkreta normkontrollen av alla de allmänna domstolarna men också av förvaltningsmyndigheterna. Om något av dessa organ skulle förklara att en lag inte är förenlig med grundlagen kan de enbart åsidosätta den grundlagsstridiga lagen i det aktuella ärendet.9 BiH och Sverige är länder med tämligen olika konstitutioner och de har valt skilda metoder för att garantera konstitutionens genomslag. Uppsatsen kommer att belysa ländernas likheter och skillnader vid den konkreta normkontrollen samt undersöka vad för effekter dessa skilda modeller av konkret normkontroll ger för att försäkra konstitutionens värderingar och dess genomslag.