Lawyer Jan Kysela, who heads Pres. Petr Pavel’s advisory panel for nominating justices to the Constitutional Court, told Právo that the panel is in agreement with the Senate that no more “pre-November” Communists should be nominated to the Court. Kysela included in this category, according to Právo, both ex-Communist Robert Fremr, who was confirmed yesterday,and Josef Baxa, who was appointed on June 5 and was a candidate for KSČ membership. IfPavel wanted to extend this new freeze on Communists to the appointment of the new chief justice tomorrow, he would either need to choose a recently appointed justice with little or no experience on a top-level court, new Justice Daniela Zemanová, or a justice whose term is expiring in the next two years. Kysela has already said that no current justices will be nominated again to the Court, but if Pavel truly wants a break from his own KSČ past, he’ll ap-
point a non-Communist tomorrow and keep that person on the Court for the next 10 years.

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