Final Word from Wednesday, April 10, 2019

"Alliantocracy" isn't a word, but we'll use it until someone comes up with a better term for a constitutional democracy that allows the wishes of an alliance partner to override its own laws. The haste with which then-Justice Min. Robert Pelikán extradited Yevgeny Nikulin to the U.S. in March 2018 indicated that he knew he was violating Czech law by doing his American colleagues a favor. One of the reasons given by senators for rejecting Aleš Gerloch as a nominee to the Constitutional Court was that he had drafted a legal analysis demonstrating why the extradition was premature. The Constitutional Court has now confirmed that Pelikán acted unconstitutionally. Gerloch's professional qualifications were denigrated by people in politics and the media who put the transatlantic partnership before their own laws and constitution. In a rule-of-law state, no one is above the law, not even a minister or an ally. In an alliantocracy, a friendly nation's "good cause" comes first. [ Czech Republic Russian hacker U.S. USA ]