The Czech Constitutional Court and the Legislator: Search for a New Method

The review of legislation by a constitutional court may be framed in a bigger picture as a part of a constitutional dialogue between the court and the legislator, which also includes the legislative reaction to the court’s judgment. A complex look at the unfolding patterns of such a dialogue may offer a deeper understanding of the functioning of the constitutional system and highlight the problematic and dysfunctional developments. In our research, we have analysed all the judgments of the Czech Constitutional Court from its establishment in 1993 to 2018 by which a statute was annulled and the subsequent legislative reactions. Through qualitative coding we have identified four main types of a legislative reaction (adoption of new legislation in conformity with the judgment, inactivity, conflict and constitutional amendment) and factors influencing it. In our paper, we will present the method we have developed, its strengths and limitations and its potential for comparative studies on the “constitutional dialogue” between the constitutional court and the legislator.