Eliska Wagner has gone to lawyer heaven

Yesterday evening, one of the most important personalities of modern Czech legal history and an emeritus vice-president of the Constitutional Court, Eliška Wagnerová, died.

Although she was born in Kladno and studied in Prague, Brno became her destiny. But this was preceded by a long life journey. In 1982, it led her first to emigration (to the German SSR and then to Canada), from which she returned after nine years - together with her husband Arnošt. She began her new life in Brno as an assistant to the President of the Constitutional Court, Zdeněk Kessler. Three years later, she was appointed by President Václav Havel as a judge of the Supreme Court and subsequently as its president. She returned to the Constitutional Court in March 2002, this time as a judge and deputy chairwoman. After ten years at the Constitutional Court, her life intersected with politics when she was elected senator for constituency 59 Brno-město in 2012 (as an independent, with the support of the Green Party). 

We often remember Eliška Wagner at the Constitutional Court. Not only through those of us who had the honour of working with her, but also through the case law she shaped in the second decade of Czech constitutional justice. She was the rapporteur judge in a total of 1938 different proceedings and in 241 cases she granted the motion. As a judge, she had a heightened level of sensitivity to the oppression of the weak, defenceless and sick, while building the pillars of plenary jurisprudence with equal intensity, whether as a rapporteur judge or as the author of implacable dissenting opinions. It was she who laid the cornerstones for the constitutional perception of European law, for adjuncts, for the review of social reforms and for many other fundamental constitutional issues. For those who would like to know more, the volume In dubio pro libertate, published in 2009 in her honour, can be recommended. 

Eliška Wagner never tried to please the powerful. She hated fearfulness, Bohemianism, sparrows in her hand and air castles, but she fought like a lioness for the rights of the last of these. She did not win many friends among politicians, but she did win many friends among her colleagues (and absolute respect and lifelong sympathy). She was well-read, with a broad international outlook and excellent scientific contacts, but she did not worry about patience or diplomatic phrases, for example. And she didn't mind at all. 

Now she's gone. To her husband Arnost, who left this world before her and missed her very much. A long applause, not only from the Constitutional Court, will accompany her on her way to lawyer heaven.

ÚS/ gnews - RoZ