Macinka's "constitutional coup" remark does not constitute a crime

A statement by Czech Foreign Minister Jan Macinka, who claimed that filing a jurisdictional complaint and the Constitutional Court's preliminary ruling amounted to an attempted "constitutional coup," does not constitute a criminal offence. This was confirmed following a police review launched after a criminal complaint was filed over the remark.

In June, Macinka used the phrase to describe the dispute between President Petr Pavel and the government over his participation in the NATO summit. The cabinet had initially planned to exclude the president from the Czech delegation, but was forced to reverse course after the Constitutional Court issued a preliminary ruling. The court has yet to rule on the substance of the jurisdictional complaint filed by the head of state.

Opposition backlash

Macinka's comment drew sharp criticism from the opposition. MP Ivo Šarapatka had already taken legal action against the foreign minister once before — that time over a separate remark in which Macinka called his critics "inferior."

Notably, this is not the first time Šarapatka has had to seek an apology from politicians over false statements made about him. Former President Miloš Zeman once apologised to him for falsely and offensively claiming that Šarapatka had been dismissed from the Strakova Academy by two prime ministers in succession. Zeman also apologised for suggesting that Šarapatka had been fired from the government office for incompetence. In reality, Šarapatka left the post during Zeman's premiership by mutual agreement.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz