Abstract
Drafting and subsequent integration of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union into the primary law of the EU meant a significant step in the field of human rights protection within Union law as it granted the Charter the same legal value as the Treaty on EU and the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU. The article mainly focuses on a rather specific issue concerning the legal status of the Charter on the national level, particularly within the legal order of the Czech Republic, as unlike other international human rights catalogues the Charter is primarily addressed to the institutions of the European Union and member states are obliged to enforce its provisions only when applying Union law.
Regarding this, the article argues that the gateway for the application of the Charter within the legal order of the Czech Republic is enshrined directly in the Constitution of the Czech Republic, in its Articles 10 and 10a. However, it also argues that the essential role plays the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic as its case-law is embedded as a force which significantly shaped the domestic legal status of the Charter, in terms of the applicability and its limits.