<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The decision stated that each party to the treaty understood it differently, adding that the seal of approval would be more protected than professional secrecy.<\/p>\n
dissenting opinion<\/h2>\n
Three of the 15 judges of the Constitutional Court presented a different position, arguing that the Court did not deal with a significant part of the legal file presented by the senators, such as objections to “the alleged prerogative of the Catholic Church in the provision of pastoral care in a wide variety of institutions and facilities”.<\/p>\n
However, he acknowledged that “the Holy See is a subject of international law, which the Czech Republic recognizes,” and therefore this is “undoubtedly an objective reason for the different treatment of the Catholic Church in various issues.” He further argued that the two problematic passages in the majority decision are not in conflict with the Constitution.<\/p>\n
The other two judges presented different positions. One of them, Judge Tomas Langacek, argued that “the dissenting opinion shows that it was possible in good faith to adopt a rational interpretation of the agreement that would in no way conflict with the constitutional order.”<\/p>\n
He said he considered the decision to be “a paradigm shift in the role and function of the constitutional judiciary”. The Constitutional Court opposed the Parliament’s intention to “take on an international legal obligation” to maintain “a legally guaranteed standard of protection of fundamental religious rights and freedoms” that already exists and in the future, Langsec said.<\/p>\n
The constitutional judge said, “The Court’s concern for equal treatment between churches and religious communities is only a disguised problem.”<\/p>\n
‘Legal defeat for people who consider religious freedom an important value’<\/h2>\n
Jakub Kris, a lawyer who teaches at the Catholic Theological Faculty of Charles University in Prague, commented, “This is a political victory for some, and a legal defeat for those, believers and non-believers, who consider religious freedom an important value.”<\/p>\n
At the same time, he said he believes the absence of an agreement for religious freedom or for “Catholics is not a tragedy”, after all, they always benefit most when the state does not get along with them.<\/p>\n
The proposal “would have had no chance of succeeding if Czech President Petr Pavel had not intervened and introduced new arguments,” suggesting for example that “the agreement contradicts the sovereignty of the state and its secular and republican character,” the scholar underlined.<\/p>\n
The negotiated agreement was “poor in content, innocent, almost immaterial” and the Czech side “did not try to negotiate anything beyond what is already in force today”, Kris said, adding that it had a “more symbolic” value.<\/p>\n
‘Big disappointment’<\/h2>\n
The decision was a “great disappointment” and “a very unfortunate event”, lamented Father Jiri Rajmund Tretera, professor of canon law at the Faculty of Law of the Dominican and Charles University.<\/p>\n
On the seal of confession, “there will be no change in the current situation”, as all believers were “guaranteed that if an anti-religious group” comes to power in our democratic state, the existing legal provisions regarding “confessional secrecy cannot be abolished so easily”.<\/p>\n
Tretera also said that he believed the Constitutional Court had “launched an unintentional attack against the ecumenical movement.” It argued that the proposed agreement was “not consistent with the principle of equality of all Churches,” yet “it is contrary to the commonly recognized reality in the non-Catholic Churches.”<\/p>\n
Kriz clarified that “non-Catholic churches” did not oppose the treaty, and “many even welcomed it, seeing its role as a stabilizer of the guarantee of religious freedom.”<\/p>\n
The only way forward is to \u201cstart negotiations from the beginning,\u201d as this is \u201cnot a bill where one sentence can be removed,\u201d the lawyer warned.<\/p>\n
Yet he said he doubted the Holy See would risk another “embarrassment” because “the Czech Republic has proven to be an unreliable international partner.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic found on 1 April that parts of the treaty between the Czech Republic and the Holy See are incompatible with the Czech Constitution and therefore cannot be ratified. The Czech Bishops’ Conference said, “We disagree with the decision of the majority of judges in the Constitutional Court but<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1958,18678,18677,13410,843,12718,350],"class_list":{"0":"post-51993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-news","8":"tag-agreement","9":"tag-confessions","10":"tag-confidentiality","11":"tag-czech","12":"tag-republic","13":"tag-stalled","14":"tag-vatican"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51993"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51996,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51993\/revisions\/51996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}