Pl. ÚS 36/25
The Constitutional Court has dismissed constitutional complaints lodged by the political party Volt Czechia (Volt Česko), which sought to annul the candidate lists of the movements Stačilo! and Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) on the grounds of alleged “undeclared” coalitions. Volt also challenged part of the Act on Elections to the Parliament. The Court held that the law defines a coalition in formal rather than substantive terms, and that the approach taken by the regional authorities and the courts was correct. Differential treatment of “declared” and “undeclared” coalitions follows from their distinct legal status and is not unconstitutional. The choice between these forms of cooperation remains a free decision of the parties concerned.
Volt Czechia argued before the administrative courts that the candidate lists of Stačilo! and SPD (as secondary parties to the proceedings) should be annulled, since candidates from other political parties and movements were also standing on them. According to Volt, this amounted to an impermissible “undeclared” coalition, concealed solely to avoid the so-called additive electoral thresholds. Under the law, a coalition of two parties requires 8% of the vote to gain seats, and a coalition of three or more requires 11%, while a single party needs only 5%. In practice, this meant that the secondary parties could enter the allocation of seats with just 5% of the vote instead of the 11% required of a declared coalition. All of Volt's petitions were rejected by the ordinary courts. The majority view was that a coalition exists only where a candidate list is explicitly presented as such (i.e. where the formal statutory requirements are met). Courts are not entitled, the majority held, to investigate whether a candidate list substantively has the character of a coalition and therefore should have been registered as one. Some courts took the opposite view, holding that they could assess such circumstances and that the secondary parties did indeed constitute a coalition in substance, even if they had not declared themselves as such, which led them to the conclusion that the secondary parties had breached their obligation to register as a coalition. Nevertheless, they declined to annul the lists, invoking the principle of minimal interference in the electoral process and the long-standing practice of permitting non-coalition alliances of political parties on candidate lists.
In both constitutional complaints, which were joined for consideration, Volt pointed to the uncertainty and inconsistency in case law on the admissibility of “undeclared” coalition lists. It argued that the secondary parties were in substance a coalition and that the majority judicial approach, which refused to engage with this question, was overly formalistic. Volt further argued that the refusal to annul the lists on the basis of judicial restraint and established practice conflicted with the principle of legal certainty and legitimised illegality.
Volt also sought the annulment of part of Section 31(1) of the Act on Elections to the Parliament, arguing that its wording was ambiguous and had given rise to divergent legal interpretations by the ordinary courts.
The Plenum of the Constitutional Court (Justice Rapporteur Milan Hulmák) dismissed the constitutional complaints.
In reaching its decision, the Constitutional Court addressed two closely related but distinct questions. The first was whether the regional authorities and subsequently the regional courts had violated Volt's fundamental rights by interpreting the term “coalition” in Section 31(1) of the Act on Elections to the Parliament solely with reference to its formal attributes, and on that basis registering the candidate lists of Stačilo! and SPD as those of individual political parties rather than coalitions. The second was whether the statutory framework itself, on which those authorities relied, is in conflict with Volt's fundamental rights or with the constitutional principles governing political competition.
In considering whether the complainant's fundamental rights had been infringed, the Constitutional Court recalled that under Section 31(1) of the Act on Elections to the Parliament, candidate lists may be submitted by registered political parties and by their coalitions. In the case of coalition lists, the law provides that “a candidate list submitted by a coalition shall be deemed to be one in which all political parties and movements standing jointly clearly designate the list as that of a coalition, state who the members of the coalition are, and set out its name”. The Act on Elections to the Parliament does not otherwise restrict political parties from including on their lists candidates who are not party members or who belong to other parties.
The legislature therefore chose – also in response to previous rulings of the Constitutional Court – to define the concept of a coalition by formal rather than substantive criteria (i.e. as an entity where all the parties and movements standing jointly designate the list as a coalition), contrary to Volt's argument. Electoral courts have consistently endorsed this formal definition. For example, the Supreme Administrative Court has emphasised that in proceedings on the registration of candidate lists, it is essential to apply the clearest possible criteria to determine whether a list represents a coalition or a single party. By contrast, allowing scrutiny of alleged “undeclared” coalitions would, in its view, introduce uncertainty and disputes into the electoral process. Moreover, any complex assessment of whether a candidate list substantively amounts to a coalition would have to be carried out within the registration process at regional authorities, which are not equipped for such an inquiry.
Beyond this, the Constitutional Court stressed that any substantive assessment of whether a candidate list constitutes a coalition would have to be grounded in sufficiently precise, clear and foreseeable legislation – which does not currently exist. Public authorities may exercise state power only in cases, within the limits and in the manner prescribed by law [Article 2(3) of the Constitution, Article 2(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms]. This principle is particularly crucial where the exercise of state power could interfere with fundamental rights – in this case, through the annulment of the candidate lists of Stačilo! and SPD, as sought by Volt.
The Constitutional Court concluded that the regional authorities and the majority of regional courts fully respected these principles and the relevant case law in the contested decisions. Their approach can be regarded as constitutionally compliant, practically the only option available under the current law, and consistent with existing electoral jurisprudence. In the registration proceedings, there was no scope for a substantive assessment of whether Stačilo! and SPD were in fact coalitions, nor whether their candidate lists should have been submitted as coalition lists.
As regards the question of the constitutionality of the Act on Elections to the Parliament itself, Volt argued that the legislation creates unequal opportunities for political entities and disadvantages it in access to elected office. It claimed that free and fair political competition is undermined by the fact that some smaller political parties with limited voter support can, through a joint candidate list, be “carried” into the Chamber of Deputies without having to overcome the additive electoral threshold.
According to the Constitutional Court, the challenged legislation would only be unconstitutional if entities in comparable situations were treated differently, such differential treatment worked to the detriment of one of them, and no legitimate reason existed for the distinction. It must be acknowledged that “declared” coalitions are in some respects disadvantaged in the electoral process compared with candidates from different parties standing together on the list of a single electoral party. The most significant disadvantage lies in the existence of the additive threshold of 8% or 11%. However, coalitions within the meaning of Section 31(1) of the Act on Elections to the Parliament are in a fundamentally different position from political parties that merely agree to place members of other parties on their candidate list. Indeed, a number of these differences work to the detriment of “undeclared” coalitions, particularly in the areas of financing and parliamentary rights.
In the area of financing, the Constitutional Court pointed to contributions linked to mandates, regular state contributions and contributions towards political activity. For example, where political parties decide to stand as a declared coalition, they do not lose the formal link to their “own” candidates, reflected in the fact that they remain entitled to state funding corresponding to the mandates obtained. By contrast, in the case of “undeclared” coalitions, this funding accrues solely to the political party which submitted the candidate list.
In parliamentary terms, the key point is that political parties whose members stand on the candidate list of another political party cannot form a parliamentary group under Section 77(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the Chamber of Deputies. Although members of such parties may form a group under paragraph 2 of that provision, this carries several disadvantages: such a group has no entitlement to proportional or parity representation in bodies of the Chamber of Deputies; it has no entitlement to financial support from the Chamber's budget; and ten deputies are required to form it, whereas only three deputies suffice to form a parliamentary group under paragraph 1.
The decision as to which of these two forms of cooperation parties adopt is simply an expression of their free will. Each option carries specific advantages and disadvantages, the evaluation of which is part of the political calculation of the participating entities. The state, and the contested legislation, by adopting a formal concept of coalitions, does not systematically place any political entity in a worse position or restrict its equal chances of electoral success. It is therefore not contrary to the principle of free political competition. “Declared” coalitions under Section 31(1) of the Act on Elections to the Parliament on the one hand, and “undeclared “coalitions on the other, are in fundamentally different positions, which from a constitutional perspective permits the legislature to treat them differently.