Final Word from Monday, February 8, 2021

Although it tried to mask it, Pavel Rychetský's Constitutional Court struck down key passages of the electoral law last week mainly because of ANO's strong results in the 2017 elections. ANO, with 78 seats, won 53 more than its nearest competitor, ODS. Prior to that, the biggest difference since the current rules took effect was in 2002. That time, Rychetský's party, ČSSD, won 12 more seats than ODS. ANO's 2017 election victory was an outlier that would not have been repeated in this year's elections, but Rychetský's court changed the rules forever because of it. Andrej Babiš is now trying to do the same thing with regard to the pandemic. Under Czech law there isn't even an epidemic, but the cabinet wants to use the corona situation to make it easier to deprive Czechs of their constitutional rights if an unelected body (the WHO) declares a pandemic. It of course bothered Babiš tremendously when the unelected Constitutional Court used an outlier situation to usurp power. [ Czech Republic World Health Organization ]