The Constitutional Court has dismissed constitutional complaints filed by Volt Czechia on undeclared coalitions

The Constitutional Court (Court) has dismissed constitutional complaints filed by the political party Volt Czechia [1] and has ruled that the formal definition of „coalition“ in Czech election law shall be upheld.

Volt argued that the candidate lists of Stačilo! [2], formerly the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, and SPD, a far-right populist party, ought to be annulled. Despite not being formally registered as coalitions, their candidate lists included candidates from multiple parties de facto constituting so-called „undeclared“ or „hidden“ coalitions. 

Volt claimed that this was a way to circumvent the higher electoral thresholds for declared coalitions. Under the law, a coalition of two or three and more subjects requires 8 % and 11 % of the vote respectively in order to obtain seats in the Chamber of Deputies, with the regular threshold (applicable to parties) being set at 5 %.

Merit of the case: the defining qualities of a coalition

According to the Court, authorities were correct to treat Stačilo! and SPD as single‐party candidate lists rather than coalitions, since they were not formally declared as such. The substantive aspects of these subjects were, on the other hand, deemed irrelevant. In other words, whether or not the candidate list has objective qualities of a coalition does not matter – rather it is the formal declaration which legally constitutes a coalition. The Court has thus ruled that it is necessary to distinguish between „declared“ and „underclared“ coalitions, with this distinction being a question of mere legal status, rather than constitutionality. 

As the Court has stated, „the decision as to which of these two forms of cooperation parties adopt is simply an expression of their free will. Each option carries specific advantages and disadvantages, the evaluation of which is part of the political calculation of the participating entities. The state, and the contested legislation, by adopting a formal concept of coalitions, does not systematically place any political entity in a worse position or restrict its equal chances of electoral success.“

The political aftermath

The complaints were swiftly decided by the Plenary Session of the Court, which produced the judgment well in advance of the 2025 parliamentary elections.

With the complaints dismissed, the candidate lists of Stačilo! and SPD remained valid. Therefore, they were assessed under the standard 5 % threshold (applicable to parties) rather than the higher thresholds required for formally declared coalitions.

Stačilo! failed to pass the 5 % threshold. However, SPD obtained 7,78 % of the votes, securing 15 seats in the Chamber of Deputies divided between three separate parties included on the candidate list.  Had the Court upheld Volt‘s claim, SPD would not have been elected.

Despite SPD’s performance being significantly weaker than in previous years and confirming the party’s declining trend, it currently appears that the winner, ANO [3], may not be able to form the government without SPD‘s support. Whether the far-right party is able to reach an agreement with the catch-all populist movement remains unclear. 

Footnotes

[1] Volt is a centrist pro-European party. Despite the significance of the constitutional complaint filed, however, in the 2025 parliamentary elections, it only received 0.06 % of all votes. See https://voltcesko.org.

[2] See https://www.stacilo.cz.

[3] See https://www.anobudelip.cz.

Sources

Czech Statistical Office. Elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic held on 3–4 October 2025. Available at: https://www.volby.cz/app/ps2025/en/results.

The Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic. (2025, September). Constitutional Court has dismissed Complaint by Volt Czechia on “Undeclared” Coalitions [press release]. Available at https://www.usoud.cz/en/current-affairs/constitutional-court-has-dismissed-complaint-by-volt-czechia-on-undeclared-coalitions.

Resolution of the Constitutional Court delivered on 24th September 2025, case No. Pl. ÚS 36/25. Available from: https://www.usoud.cz/fileadmin/user_upload/Tiskova_mluvci/Publikovana_usneseni/Pl-36_25.pdf.