Final Word from Thursday, July 23, 2026

If Petr Pavel truly wanted to expand the powers of the Czech president, he could ask Chief Justice Josef Baxa of the Constitutional Court to find a clever way to strike down Art. 50 of the Constitution, under which only an absolute majority, and not a supermajority, is needed to override a presidential veto. It's this provision that in most cases makes a presidential veto - like Pavel's yesterday - merely a political statement. Almost any government can put together 101 votes when necessary. To improve the president's position, Baxa could rely on an argument of his own court in the matter of conditioning state-recognized gender reassignment on a surgical procedure. In striking down mandatory operations, the Court stated that, "One of the Constitutional Court's roles is to 'catalyze' democratic debate in situations where such debate has not yet taken place or where it has been dysfunctional for a long time." It's clearly dysfunctional to have a directly elected president who has no hope in hell of getting a veto to stick. [ sex change budgetary rules ]