The Constitutional Court should examine whether Czech freedoms and rights are endangered by the global anti-piracy agreement  ACTA before the country takes any further steps to enact it , the Minister of Industry and Trade says.

Czech president Václav Klaus had responded to the upper house of parliament’s demand, and warning from some quarters that he might face impeachment action if he continued to delay, and signed the Additional Protocol to the European Social Charter. The social charter was approved by both houses in 2003 but the Czech head of state had held off signing it. 

Putting your trust in the people is a good slogan for politicians seeking support, and this was the main argument wheeled out in the key Senate vote that pushed through direct Czech presidential elections for the first time. But there is a downside to the process, notably the increased risk of turf wars between the president and government, election of a non-democrat, and the fact Czechs will be left jaded by the process.

Communist prosecutor, Karel Vaš, who played a prominent role in the purge of the top brass of the Czechoslovak military in the late 1940’s, should have served a six-year sentence, Justice Minister Pospíšil has said in a complaint to the Supreme Court; according to Pospíšil, the High Court acted illegally by letting Vaš walk free on the grounds of statutes of limitations. In 2001, Vaš was sentenced to six years for the murder of General Heliodor Píka, who was sentenced to death and executed in 1949.