From Ankara to Brno: Why the Constitutional Court Intervened Before Deciding the NATO Dispute

In our previous newsletter, we examined the constitutional dispute over who should represent the Czech Republic at the NATO summit in Ankara. President Petr Pavel maintained that his constitutional role entitled him to participate, while the Government decided that the Czech delegation would be led by the Prime Minister without the President. On 22 June 2026, the President brought the dispute before the Constitutional Court. He asked the Court to determine which constitutional authority may decide on the President’s participation in NATO summits as part of the official Czech delegation. At the same time, he requested an interim measure securing his participation in the summit scheduled for 7 and 8 July 2026.

Two days later, the Constitutional Court granted that request. In its resolution Pl. ÚS 16/26 of 24 June 2026, it ordered the Government, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to notify NATO that the President was also a member of the official Czech delegation, arrange the necessary accreditation for him and his accompanying delegation, and refrain from obstructing or complicating their participation. The decision resolved the immediate practical problem. It did not resolve the underlying constitutional dispute.

An urgent decision without a final answer

The President’s petition pursued two objectives. The first was immediate: to secure his participation in the Ankara summit. The second was broader: to obtain a binding determination of the respective powers of the President and the Government concerning presidential participation in NATO summits.

Only the first issue required an urgent response. The deadline for notifying the organisers of the composition of the Czech delegation was 26 June 2026. A decision delivered after the summit would therefore have had no practical effect on the President’s participation in that particular meeting. At the same time, the Court considered it irresponsible to decide such a significant, complex and exceptional constitutional question under severe time pressure. It therefore issued an interim measure while expressly reserving the substantive constitutional issues for its final decision. 

The resolution cannot be understood as confirming that the President has an autonomous constitutional right to attend NATO summits. Nor did the Court determine that the Government had acted unconstitutionally. It decided only how relations between the constitutional institutions should temporarily be arranged until the underlying competence dispute could be examined properly.

Preserving established constitutional practice

The central element of the Court’s reasoning was the established practice of presidential participation in NATO summits. The Court noted that, since the Czech Republic joined NATO, the Government had generally not prevented the President from attending NATO summits and had arranged his participation. Presidents had ordinarily formed part of the Czech delegations, with exceptions in 2022 resulting from the then President’s health complications. According to the Court, this constituted an established and long-term practice. Since that practice did not appear prima facie unconstitutional, the Court considered its temporary preservation to be the more appropriate course until the respective competences of the President and the Government could be authoritatively determined. It also concluded that maintaining the existing arrangement for the Ankara summit would not disproportionately interfere with the Government’s constitutional position under Article 67(1) of the Constitution. Until the competence dispute was finally decided, continuity should therefore prevail.

This does not mean that past practice automatically becomes binding constitutional law. It does, however, demonstrate that established institutional arrangements may have a stabilising function where the constitutional text does not provide an immediate answer and political coordination has failed. The case therefore illustrates the practical importance of constitutional conventions. Such conventions often remain unnoticed for as long as the relevant institutions respect them. Their significance becomes apparent only when one constitutional actor decides to depart from the previous arrangement.

A contested judicial intervention

The decision was not unanimous. Judges Jan Wintr and Dita Řepková opposed both its operative part and its reasoning. Their dissent accepted that interim measures are not necessarily excluded in competence disputes. However, such intervention should remain exceptional, particularly where the Constitutional Court enters an ongoing political conflict without having first determined the scope of the contested constitutional powers. The dissenting judges also stressed that a competence dispute concerns objective constitutional law rather than the protection of the interests of an individual office-holder. Even if the President had not attended one particular summit, the Court could still have clarified the relevant powers for future cases. In their view, the purpose of the proceedings would therefore not have been defeated. They further questioned whether preserving an established practice was sufficient grounds for interim relief. The existence of a long-term practice does not by itself establish which institution possesses the relevant constitutional competence.

The disagreement within the Court thus reflects two different approaches to constitutional adjudication. The majority prioritised continuity and the prevention of an irreversible practical outcome. The dissent placed greater emphasis on judicial restraint and warned against treating established practice as a legally protected competence before deciding the merits.

The constitutional conflict continues

The interim measure ensured the President’s participation in Ankara, but the central questions remain open. The Constitutional Court must still determine whether the President’s power under Article 63(1)(a) of the Constitution to represent the state externally includes the authority to decide independently on participation in NATO summits. It must also clarify how that power relates to the Government’s position as the supreme body of executive power and its political responsibility for foreign and defence policy.

The President travelled to Ankara, but the constitutional conflict travelled on to Brno. What began as a dispute over one seat in the Czech delegation has become a test of how the Czech constitutional system responds when its two executive actors no longer cooperate and the text of the Constitution does not offer an immediate solution. The interim measure preserved continuity, but it also demonstrated that institutional practice can acquire real constitutional weight when political coordination breaks down.

The forthcoming judgment must now decide whether that practice reflects a legally protected presidential competence or merely an arrangement that the Government remained free to change. Its consequences will not be confined to a single summit. They will determine how power is divided, exercised and restrained at the highest level of the Czech state whenever political conflict replaces constitutional cooperation.

By JUDr. Marie Zámečníková, Ph.D.

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