The definition of the Czech Republic as a democratic "Rechtsstaat" stresses the combination of the two principles, democracy and the rule of law. To modify either of these two is forbidden by article 9 of the Constitution. The term "Rechtsstaat" should not be understood merely formally, but substantively. The Constitutional Court confirmed this in its adjudications. As early as December 1993, it ruled: ""The Constitution accepts and respects the principle of legality as a part of the overall concept of a "Rechtsstaat"; it does not merely link positive law to formal legality, it also subordinates the construction and application of legal norms to the substantive meaning of their content; it makes it a premise of law that it respects basic constitutive values of democratic society, and measures the application of legal norms by these values.""