Decision of the Constitutional Court of the
U.br.59/96 off 25.12.1996
Headnotes:
No citizen can be deprived of liberty
except by a court decision for his or her detention in cases determined by law.
Summary:
The initiative was lodged by the Bar
Council challenging Article 151.3 of the
Under the challenged provision, the
police were authorized to summon citizens by a writ stating the reasons for the
summons and to take them by force to a police station if they failed to respond
to the summons, upon the condition that the summons contained the warning of
such a consequence.
The Court repealed the challenged
provision finding it unconstitutional , for the
following reasons:
By Article 12 of the Constitution, the
human right to liberty is irrevocable. A person’s liberty cannot be restricted
except by court decision and in such cases and according to such procedure as
determined by law.
The sense of this constitutional
provision is that detention should be allowed only if both conditions are
fulfilled cumulatively, i.e. the citizen can be detained only in cases
determined by law and on the basis of a court decision for his or her detention
(or any other kind of deprivation of liberty). Considering that the challenged
Article envisages the apprehension of citizens who fail to respond to the
summons, without the prerequisite of a court decision, the Court found that
this provision is not consistent with the Constitution, since the
constitutional requirement that both conditions under which the citizens could
be deprived of liberty be fulfilled has not been respected.