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Constitutional act no. 515/2002 Coll.

Constitutional act no. 515/2002 Coll. is interesting from several points of view. First of all it is basically a one-shot (even though this is not completely precise – see further) constitutional act that specified the way in which a consent to the accession of the Czech Republic to the European Union shall be given. Furthermore, it is so far (as of July 2015) the only piece of legislation that allowed for a national referendum to take place.

The Czech constitutional system adheres to the principles of representative democracy; some elements of (semi)direct democracy are envisaged by the Constitution (cf. art. 2 para. 2) but with the only exception (i. e. this constitutional act) it remains only a theoretical possibility. On the other hand municipal and regional referendums are regulated by ordinary statutes (acts n. 22/2004 Coll. and n. 118/2010 Coll. respectively).

Were it not for constitutional act n. 515/2012 Coll., the accession treaty could have been ratified with the consent of both chambers of the Parliament (art. 49 of the Constitution). Art. 5 para. 2 of this constitutional act makes it clear, however, that the consent given in the referendum replaces the consent of the Parliament (and art. 1 para. 1 makes this the only option).

The reason for adoption of this constitutional act was to safeguard the highest possible degree of political legitimacy for the decision on the accession the European Union (because of the far-reaching political and legal consequences of such a decision). In the last few decades, referendums on accession to the EU or referendums concerning amendments of primary EU law took place in many member states (inter alia Austria, France, Ireland or Finland) and even some non-member states (Norway).

The question asked in the referendum formally concerned “only” whether the Czech Republic accedes to the European Union, but indirectly the decision concerned accession under the conditions set by the accession treaty that was negotiated by the Government. Even though – from a certain point of view – this was a one-shot constitutional act, it envisaged that the referendum might be repeated in case the accession would be rejected. In such a case, the repeated referendum could have taken place at least two years after the “failed” attempt.

A traditional problem of the referendums is how to set a quorum. Constitutional act n. 515/2002 Coll. only required a simple majority of participating voters for the accession to be authorized. No participation threshold (or some comparable method of safeguarding representativeness) was used. The referendum took place on June 13 and 14 2003; cca. 55 % of the eligible voters participated in it and 77 % of them voted in favour of the accession.