Czech President Petr Pavel has filed a lawsuit against Prime Minister Andrej Babis after not including him in the delegation for the NATO summit to be held in Ankara on July 7-8, Politico reported.
The jurisdiction case, which was filed with the Czech Constitutional Court, seeks clarity on who has the authority to decide whether the head of state can attend the NATO summit. The court is due to consider the matter during its plenary session on June 24.
According to Pavel, by trying to exclude him from the delegation for the NATO summit, his prime minister is "limiting the role granted to him by the Constitution".
The president pointed out that his predecessors had attended all previous NATO summits and that he had attended every one of the alliance's gatherings since he took office in 2023.
After months of disputes over who would represent Prague in Ankara, Andrej Babis said yesterday that the head of state could not join the official delegation because "this summit will be different from the previous ones".
During the upcoming gathering, the prime minister is expected to justify his decision to cut core military spending to around 1.8% of GDP, below NATO's 2% target. Babis' move to ban Pavel from the gathering may be related to the former general's opposition to the cuts, which he considers "irresponsible".
Regarding the lawsuit filed today, Babis commented that while he respects the president's decision to file a lawsuit, he "does not think it's a good idea". "It is not appropriate for constitutional officials to file lawsuits against each other", he stated in a post on his X profile.
In his statement, Petr Pavel also insisted that the latest clash "was not about a chair at a foreign meeting", but about the separation of powers.
"If I did not defend these powers, I would bear some responsibility for opening the door wide for further arbitrary restrictions on the powers of constitutional officials", the president also pointed out.