Reflection on the approach of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic to the obligation to interpret and apply Czech law in a Eurocompliant manner
Abstract
It is argued in the article that the approach of Czech Constitutional Court (CCC) to EU law obligation to EU law consistent interpretation of national laws needs to be refined in order to be conceptually coherent with its approach to EU law obligation of national courts to refer to CJ EU preliminary questions of interpretation or validity of EU law. While in the latter approach the CCC makes a distinction between whatever and qualified (arbitrary/manifest) breaches of the EU law obligation and consequently considers as unconstitutional only qualified breaches of the obligation, in the former approach the CCC docs not make such distinction and thus implicitly considers as unconstitutional all the breaches of the obligation.
It is submitted in the article that for the sake of conceptual coherency also the approach of the CCC to EU law obligation to EU law consistent interpretation of national laws should be based on a distinction between whatever and qualified (arbitrary/manifest) breaches of this obligation.