Prague, Dec 2 (CTK) – The Czech Senate approved Wednesday the nomination of Josef Fiala, from the Faculty of Law of Masaryk University in Brno, as a Constitutional Court (US) judge, to replace Vladimir Kurka, whose ten-year mandate expires on December 15.
Kurka, 62, was supported by 52 out of 71 senators taking part in the vote.
Fiala heads the civil law department of the Faculty of Law of Masaryk University, is a member of the Government Legislative Council and an arbitrator.
Fiala has been assistant to several US judges, has experience as a lawyer and he heads a team of authors of substantive civil law textbooks.
Fiala was proposed to the Senate by President Milos Zeman who preferred him to several other candidates, citing his erudition in the field of insolvency law that he considers to be an important part of a US judge´s work mainly in the future.
US chairman Pavel Rychetsky told CTK the court is now almost optimal from the point of view of representation of various kinds of expertise and legal professions.
Before Zeman became president in March 2013, the US was almost paralysed because it was incomplete after Zeman´s predecessor, Vaclav Klaus, did not nominate candidates for US judges at the end of his second mandate and the court was long incomplete. Now, it has all 15 judges.
Rychetsky said he expects the new and complete lineup of the US to largely shorten the list of 1700 “live” cases with which the US is loaded now.
Rychetsky, 72, will not probably complete his second ten-year mandate that would expire in 2020 since he wants to leave the post in 2017. He said he agreed with starting his second term to ensure the decision-making continuity.
Rychetsky is generally opposed to the repetition of the US judges´ mandates.
