The right to protect democracy in the Czech Republic: arguments of constitutional jurisprudence

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the lustration mechanism in the Czech Republic. For this purpose, the relevant legislation was analyzed, which established restrictions on access to positions for some categories of persons due to their behavior during the totalitarian regime.
 Special attention was paid to the analysis of the decision of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic, which resolved the issue of the constitutionality of lustration laws. It is emphasized that the Constitutional Court recognized the nature of lustration as the removal of citizens from the possibility of access to positions in state authorities, which is carried out directly on the basis of formal, categorical features, and not by individual condemnation of persons, according to the criteria established by law, based on the obligation to respect democratic principles Each state has the right to determine the conditions of access to participation in governance, and one of these conditions is loyalty to democracy. At the same time, no person is limited in access to a political function (deputies, senators). The lustration laws do not deal with establishing guilt and punishment. Instead, the implementation of lustration procedures is subject to judicial control.
 The purpose of lustration legislation in this state reflected a substantial public interest. Second, the experience of the Czech Republic emphasizes the difference between lustration as a phenomenon and mechanisms of legal responsibility. The practice of lustration is compatible with the values of a state based on the rule of law, if the means chosen by the legislator in its implementation are proportional to the defined goal.
 It was concluded that the application of lustration legislation in the Czech Republic had an undeniable impact on the direction, sequence and pace of systemic reforms. In addition, the lustration legislation solved another problem - the protection of the rights of the persons to whom it applies. These persons were protected from the unlawful use of archival materials related to them.