Czech Constitutional Court and Social Rights: Empirical Analysis

The paper analyses case law of the Czech Constitutional Court concerning social rights, in particular how the reasonableness test is applied there. It confirms that the approach of the court is volatile, which is manifested by deviations from the formal structure of the test, arbitrary and unstable definitions of the core (essential content) of the rights and differences in how strict the requirements of reasonableness are to be. The author asserts that the shortcomings follow rather from the poor design of the test itself than just from a lack of diligence. As a better alternative he proposes the extreme disproportionality test which is already used by the court for review of tax legislation and should be used in social rights cases too.