Brno, May 15 (CTK) – Physicist Ivan Ostadal and Charles University have filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court (US) against the courts’ previous verdicts on their lawsuit over President Milos Zeman’s inactivity in the case of Ostadal’s appointment as professor, CTK has found out on the US website.
The US received their complaint in early May. It challenges the verdicts by the Supreme Administrative Court (NSS) and the Prague Municipal Court.
Zeman did not appoint Ostadal as professor citing his cooperation with the Communist secret police (StB) among the reasons.
The US plenary session of all constitutional judges will deal with the complaint probably because the president figures in the case.
In March, the NSS rejected a cassation complaint by Ostadal and Charles University (UK) over Zeman’s inactivity, but it complied with another complaint aimed against Zeman’s decision not to appoint Ostadal.
It ordered the Prague Municipal Court to deal with the complaint against the decision not to appoint Ostadal, which it previously rejected as belated.
Ostadal and UK where he works pointed to Zeman’s inactivity which rested in his failure to sign Ostadal’s appointing decree.
The Municipal Court previously concluded that Zeman had already made the decision, and consequently he was not inactive any more. The court argued with Zeman’s letter to Education Minister Katerina Valachova (Social Democrats, CSSD) in which he wrote that he would not appoint Ostadal.
The president put it clearly in his letter, which can be considered a form of decision, the court said.
The NSS upheld the lower level court’s verdict. It also considered the letter from January 2016 a clear expression of Zeman’s will not to appoint Ostadal. It also said Zeman’s decision not to appoint a nominee professor is not subject to countersigning by the prime minister, unlike his decision to appoint a nominee.
The other complaint filed by Ostadal and UK was aimed against Zeman’s decision as such, but the Municipal Court previously rejected it as belated. The NSS cancelled the verdict in March and returned the case to the Municipal Court for further proceedings.
Along with Ostadal, Zeman did not appoint another two proposed candidates for professors: Jiri Fajt, director of the National Gallery (NG) in Prague, and Jan Eichler, from the University of Economics (VSE).
Fajt has also failed with his legal complaint. The NSS received his cassation complaint in February.
Since Zeman’s refusal to appoint the three candidates, he has received three lists of other proposed professors that the government approved. Zeman has not rejected any of these candidate.
On the basis of an agreement with Zeman, the education minister regularly passes on the appointment decrees to new professors. This used to be the president’s duty in the past.
