President’s advisor recommends Klaus take Lisbon Treaty to Constitutional Court

A top advisor to the Czech president Václav Klaus has stated that he believes that Mr Klaus should take the matter of the Lisbon Treaty to court himself. Ladislav Jakl also stated that he believes that the EU document, if approved, would signal the end of the Czech Republic as a sovereign country – a view similar to that of the Czech president. It is unclear whether Mr Klaus will heed the advice and argue the matter before the Constitutional Court in person during a full hearing, but in a Czech media interview, Mr Jakl stated that he hopes that others will join the president in an effort to, as he put it, save the sovereignty of the country. The Czech president has previously visited the Court, and argued his case in an informal preliminary hearing last week. Meanwhile, the head of the Czech Constitutional Court Pavel Rychetský has stated that a renewed challenge to the Lisbon Treaty on constitutional grounds would leave the challenger with “very little room for manoeuvre”.