Constitutional co-author Vojtěch Cepl dies at 71

Former constitutional judge and one of the authors of the Czech constitution, Vojtěch Cepl, has died at the age of 71. The Constitutional Court announced the death on Saturday. Judge Eliška Wagnerová, who made the announcement, praised her colleague’s tireless promotion of the rule of law, which he felt was as important as democracy itself. As court’s most visible member, she said, Judge Cepl had helped ingrain the institution of constitutional justice in Czech society.

Vojtěch Cepl was born in Prague in 1938 and was educated at Charles University, Oxford and the University of Michigan. From 1969 until 1993 he was a professor at Charles University and sat on the Constitutional Court from 1993 until 2003.