Czech Constitutional Court says it is not the venue to take action against racist campaign ads, attorney criticizes the decision
The Czech Constitutional Court says it will not be taking action against the campaign advertisements published by the "Freedom and Direct Democracy" (SPD), PRO and Tricolor parties in the runup to the elections to regional assemblies (underway now) because it could not find a procedural route through which to do so. The first complaints against the advertisements made in a series of filings which were coordinated by attorney Pavla Krejčí were rejected at the turn of August and September. Now the court has also rejected a complaint filed by the South Bohemian Regional Authority, where the procedural situation was slightly different and therefore there was a chance for a different outcome. "If they'd wanted to, they had the opportunity to review the case, the law on the Constitutional Court facilitates it," Krejčí posted to the X social media site. The justification is not yet available in the court database.
Krejčí and her clients attempted to protect the integrity of the elections through the courts in different regions, asking them to ban the use of the advertisement with the message “Deficiencies in health care won’t be solved by importing ‘surgeons'”. That advertisement featured a photo of a dark-skinned man holding a knife. The attorney and her clients also referenced an advertisement with an image of two Romani boys smoking cigarettes. That image was created by artificial intelligence and is accompanied by the message “They say we should go to school, but our folks couldn’t care less…”.
Regional-level courts did not hear the plaintiffs’ proposals and the Constitutional Court declined to take action in the case as well. In its first finding rejecting the complaints, the court wrote that the critics of the SPD campaign should be turning to the Supreme Administrative Court. With regard to this most recent decision, Krejčí is criticizing the court’s justification as insufficient and also the fact that the court provided no instruction on how the use of similar motifs during elections can effectively be prevented in the future.
“From a procedural standpoint, the Constitutional Court could not have decided otherwise. The court had no other option. If we want to define the rules of election campaigns differently, we have to change the law itself,” Constitutional Court judge David Uhlíř responded on X.
The ROMEA organization, Romani community member Cyril Koky (who works as the Central Bohemian Regional Authority’s Coordinator for National Minorities), and others filed a report of a crime against the SPD movement, its chair Tomio Okamura, the PRO and Tricolor parties and their marketers in August over the controversial campaign. According to them the ad with the Romani boys is racist, spreading hatred toward the Romani minority and defaming them.
Okamura told the Czech News Agency (ČTK) that these reports of a crime confirm that the SPD has “hit the nail on the head” with its campaign ads. He called the images used “allegories”.
Police had already opened a criminal proceedings over the ad with the dark-skinned man carrying a knife and are still investigating both cases.
Earlier this summer the Constitutional Court also rejected Krejčí’s complaint criticizing the campaign ads of the PRO party during the elections to the European Parliament. According to that complaint, the party’s campaign was not conducted in conformity with the values of a democracy and the rule of law. Krejčí sought to have the elections of new MEPs and their alternates overturned, i.e., she basically sought new elections. The court said the law does not make such an intervention possible.
“The plaintiff’s proposal was condemned to failure,” the resolution of the court’s plenary reads, the rapporteur for which was Jiří Přibáň. However, the court did admit that the campaigns run by several candidates could be perceived as “low-minded at the very least”.
