The opening of the 4th Congress of the WCCJ took place on Tuesday, 12 September in Vilnius and it was attended by Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė, other high ranked state officials of Lithuania , as well as by supreme representatives of the European Court of Human Rights, Venice Commission or the General Court of the European Union.

Czech Constitutional Court´s delegation had been headed by the Vice-President Jaroslav Fenyk, who also chaired the meeting of Conference of European Constitutional Courts in the eve of opening the 4th Congress. The CECC meeting was focused primarily to the organizational issues related to preparatory meeting of the CECC in Prague in June 2018. Also the new Conference web-site and contacts were introduced to the European Courts.

Moreover, upon the initiative of the Constitutional Court of Austria, many participating European Constitutional Courts expressed their concerns about the fact that the Justices of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation were prohibited from entering the territory of Lithuania and thus have been prevented from taking part in the 4th WCCJ Congress. The Bureau of the World Conference, which member is also the Czech Constitutional Court, therefore took steps to secure that the future host of a WCCJ Congress must be able to ensure entry into the country of the Congress for all member Courts attending the WCCJ event.

The key aim of the Congress is to discuss the diversity of the concepts of the rule of law and the new challenges to the rule of law. Special attention has been paid to the relationship between law and the state, and the stocktaking of the independence of constitutional courts.

Vlastimil Göttinger
Head of External Relations Dept.