Czech Senators add to Lisbon treaty complaint

Czech senators who lodged a complaint against the EU’s reforming Lisbon treaty have made a further submission to the Czech Republic’s highest court aimed at supplementing their case. An official at the Czech Constitutional Court said on Monday that the mostly right-leaning senators had lodged their new material on Friday. The court is due to meet on Tuesday over their complaint about whether the treaty is in conflict with Czech law. A decision is looking likely. Senators added to their original submission when the court sat last Tuesday with court chairman Pavel Rychetský complaining then that the move bordered on obstruction.

The court verdict is the last barrier standing in the way of Czech ratification of the Lisbon treaty after President Václav Klaus was granted an exemption from part of the treaty, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, at a meeting of EU leaders at the end of last week. President Klaus said he wanted guarantees that Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia at the end of World War Two could not use it to reclaim their property.