Seat of the Court

Seat of the Constitutional Court

 

The Constitutional Court of the Czechoslovak Republic, established in 1921, had its official seat in Prague. However, it was never given its own building. Its Justices met ad hoc and their offices were in the seat of the then Unification Ministry. After the Second World War, the constitutional judiciary was not reinstated; hence, the debates concerning the new seat were only initiated after 1990. As the modern constitutional judiciary respects a consistent separation of the judicial power from the executive and legislative branches of government, the City of Brno was chosen to be the seat of the Constitutional Court (and also as the seat of other supreme judicial institutions), as a logical counterweight to Prague, where government and parliamentary institutions are located. Thus, since its establishment in 1993, the Constituional Court has been housed in the Moravian Diet Building in Joštova Street in Brno. (The Constitutional Court of Czech and Slovak Federal Republic sat in the same building.)