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standards in this area of law. And one judge of the Supreme Administrative Court
has admitted at a recent conference that he does not even work with domestic asylum
and alien legislation because it is chaotic. He uses the EU directives, which are deeply
inter-connected with the 1951 Refugee Convention, instead.
To add my own personal opinion, I have always thought that the Supreme
Administrative Court is the best human rights court in the Czech Republic. It actually
mixes the human rights principles into its interpretation of relevant law and is much
more efficient in doing so than the Constitutional Court. The Supreme Administrative
Court cannot reject a cassation complaint for the lack of constitutional dimension and
it has to deal fully with every case. That is the main difference from the Constitutional
Court, which rejects the absolute majority of all appeals. For that reason, the Supreme
Administrative Court has better opportunity to actually implement human rights treaties
in domestic administrative law. And my impression is that it does so pretty damn well.
The second supreme jurisdiction in the Czech Republic – the Supreme Court
– most commonly applies the European Convention on Human Rights, European
Convention on Extradition or the Convention on the Civil Aspects of International
Child Abduction (p. 158). For instance, Article 5 (5) of the European Convention on
Human Rights played a significant role in the area of compensations for immaterial
harm in cases of unlawful deprivations of liberty.
But one particular finding of the authors probably could not surprise me more.
The Supreme Court refers to international human rights treaties more often than
the Supreme Administrative Court (p. 165). This is surprising because the Supreme
Court is often criticized for its opinions and the way it reasons its decisions.
12
The
fact that it works with human rights treaties more often than its administrative
companion is certainly one of the most positive messages of the book.
Authors of the judicial chapter finalize it with emphasizing three factors which
influence the way that both supreme courts work with international human rights
treaties: 1) the subject matter and nature of the treaty; 2) how the treaty is established
in the “domestic arena”; 3) if the treaty brings “something extra”, i.e. if the treaty
itself or the findings of respective international body go beyond domestic law and
offer wider or more detailed guidelines (p. 165).
The very last chapter of the book stresses the importance of NGOs for the actual
“life” of international human rights treaties in domestic law. The author of this chapter
presents NGOs in three different roles: 1) as (international) norm entrepreneurs,
2) norm-setters, and 3) norm-enforcers (pp. 167-169). NGOs were also “at the birth”
of many human rights treaties, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Discrimination against Women, Convention against Torture and Other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Convention on the Rights of the
12
See e.g. Bobek, Michal.
Comparative Reasoning in European Supreme Courts.
New York: Oxford
University Press, 2013. pp. 162-164.