27.05.2021 14:28
At the end of 2018 and in the first half of 2019, the expected supply of legislative innovations will be smaller than usual at the turn of the year. This is due to a number of reasons. There are legislative proposals which the Parliament failed to discuss in the previous parliamentary term, and these “fell through the cracks”. If they are to be passed, they must be resubmitted. Also, the slowing down in legislative activity has been caused by the fact that the Chamber of Deputies took a long time to be constituted after the elections, positions and posts had to be negotiated and a lot of time was required for the formation of the cabinet. Finally, this situation can be attributed to long discussions, especially in the Chamber of Deputies, on politically hot issues, such as the increase in pensions, which put off discussions of other legislation.
In spite of this, we will probably see several important pieces of legislation or amendments of existing legislation. Two examples can be named, in fact legacies from the previous term.
In 2017 and in the first half of 2018, the General Regulation on Personal Data Protection (GDPR) resonated very strongly but it seems that the interest has died down. However, the topic is still worth our attention. Currently, the Czech Republic is the only EU Member State which has not transposed GDPR into its domestic legislation. The Act on the Processing of Personal Data is currently in the second reading in the Chamber of Deputies. The Act will, inter alia, detail out and complement some of the obligations under the General Regulation, and once adopted, the transposition process of the general legal framework for the protection of personal data will be completed. Only by its adoption will all rights and obligations following from the Regulation have their final form.
Besides the Act on Processing of Personal Data, which represents a real backlog of the Czech lawmakers with respect to the EU legislation, there is another significant unfinished job by the Chamber of Deputies from the past parliamentary term, which, if adopted, will affect a wide range of persons. Currently, a draft amendment to the Labor Code is in the inter-ministerial review procedure. Several (positive and negative) points were removed from the draft proposal: transfer to another job, work from home, etc. On the other hand, the following amendments were retained and complemented with others: transfer of rights and obligations from labor relations; substantial alignment of two types of work contracts (DPP and DPC) carried out outside of employment; different approach to calculating minimum and minimum guaranteed wages; new calculation of paid leave based on hours rather than days, mechanism for serving of documents, and more. Unlike in the case of the Act on Processing of Personal Data, it is not certain whether the draft amendments will pass the legislative process, although it is quite likely. However, the final version of the amended Labor Code may substantially differ from the current proposal of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.
If you have any questions about or in connection with the above, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Author: Jakub Morávek