Brno, Dec 27 (CTK) – The Czech Constitutional Court (US) has received a complaint from Terezie Holovska who previously challenged five contenders for presidency whose bids had been partly backed each by the same MPs but the Supreme Administrative Court (NSS) recently dismissed her complaint for formal reasons.
Holovska, an entrepreneur and former deputy mayor of Prague’s 4th district, wants the US to abolish the NSS’s decision from mid-December.
The US posted Holovska’s complaint on its website on Wednesday.
While dismissing Holovska’s complaint due to formal shortcomings, the NSS criticised the Interior Ministry for its wrong legal opinion and stated that next time, each deputy or senator can support only one presidential candidate with their signature.
Out of the nine candidates running in the January direct presidential election, the problem concerns Petr Hannig, Marek Hilser, Jiri Hynek, Vratislav Kulhanek and Mirek Topolanek. Since no responsible official or authority challenged these candidates’ registration duly and in time, their bids remain registered.
The NSS’s judge rapporteur Josef Baxa pointed to a long constitutional practice. Never in the modern Czech history, a legislator proposed more candidates for president. Besides, if no limits were set for their signatures, legislators could send lots of candidates to the presidential contest, Baxa said.
Holovska wanted to run in the mid-January direct presidential election, but the Interior Ministry rejected her bid over its failure to meet the relevant criteria.
The first round of the presidential election is due on January 12-13, 2018, and a possible second round two weeks later.
Nine men will compete for head of state in January.
Along with incumbent President Milos Zeman, the candidates are former Science Academy chairman Jiri Drahos, businessman and lyricist Michal Horacek, all of whom have gathered the required 50,000 signatures of people in support of their bids, former Civic Democrat (ODS) chairman and ex-PM Topolanek, physician and activist Hilser, former ambassador to France Pavel Fischer, each of whom has received support from at least 10 senators, and Skoda Auto former board chairman Kulhanek (Civic Democratic Alliance, ODA), Defence and Security Industry Association President Hynek (Realists party), and musician and producer Hannig, head of the marginal Reasonable party, each supported by at least 20 deputies.
