Deliberate destabilization on trial: Fair-process lessons from the Czech Coal Commission

Expert commissions have become pivotal in coal-phase-out governance, yet their capacity to unsettle incumbent coal regimes remains contested: do they genuinely shift entrenched power relations or merely create an illusion of participatory legitimacy? Drawing on energy-justice and transition studies, this article approaches the issue from the perspective of procedural justice and assumes this tenet of justice is crucial in shaping the outcome of an institutionally induced destabilization. We develop a four-part framework of procedural justice – member selection, stakeholder balance, deliberative conditions, and public transparency – and apply this framework to the Czech Coal Commission (2019–2021), which was established as an expert body tasked with establishing the coal phase-out schedule. Our results show that the Czech Coal Commission was blatantly procedurally unjust. Discretionary appointments, industry-leaning membership, and compressed timelines that circumscribed substantive deliberation ultimately enabled coal incumbents to retain power over the outcome. This case underscores that rigorous procedural design is a necessary precondition for commissions to function as effective agents of destabilization within fossil-fuel regimes, and that design choices must be addressed if similar bodies are to support credible and socially legitimate coal exits. • We examine the Czech Coal Commission as a key case in coal phase-out politics. • We refine a four-dimensional framework of procedural justice for phase-out bodies. • We show flawed procedural design stalls progress toward a credible coal exit. • The Commission acted symbolically, not as a tool of regime destabilization. • Lesson: without rules, resources and follow-through, commissions fail.