Description

The legislation of the Czech Republic consists of constitutional laws, statuses, findings of the Constitutional Court, strands of European law, ratified international agreements and implementing legislation, which includes government orders, ministerial notifications and notifications of other central administrative offices and generally binding decrees and statutes of regional authorities.

The main types of legal instruments

Constitutional laws

legislation with the highest legal force, dealing with the most important matters of the state and human and civic rights. They include the Constitution of the Czech Republic and the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms of the CzechRepublic.

Statutes

legal provisions governing the rights and obligations of natural and legal persons and the competence and scope of public authorities. Statutes are superordinate to implementing provisions but subordinate to the Constitution, constitutional laws and international treaties.

Government orders

implementing provisions of acts. To implement an act, the government may issue an order within the scope of the act, without an explicit authorisation present in the act itself.

Ministerial notifications and notifications of other central administrations

implementing provisions of acts, issued by central administration authorities (e.g. a ministry) explicitly authorised to that end by the act.

Findings of the Constitutional Court

repealing legislation or parts thereof.

International treaties

part of the regulatory procedure if: (1) ratified by the Parliament (2) they are valid (3) the Czech Republic is bound by them and (4) they have been duly published in the collection of international treaties.

Legislation of the Czech Republic and international agreements are published in the following official journals:

• Sbírka zákonů (Collection of Laws)
• Sbírka mezinárodních smluv (Collection of International Treaties)
• Věstníky právních předpisů krajů (District Journals of Statutes) and Věstník právních předpisů hlavního města Prahy (Journal of Statutes of the City of Prague)
• Úřední desky obecních úřadů (Municipality Bulletin boards)

Online sources of information on the legislation of the Czech Republic

Czech authorities publish information about the binding legislation in the following information systems:

• „Sbírka zákonů“ application

access to the Collection of Laws and to the Collection of International Treaties – http://aplikace.mvcr.cz/sbirka-zakonu/ (Czech only, some site info in English).

• „ Portál veřejné správy" (National Public Administration Portal) – section „Vyhledávání v zákonech“ (Search section) http://portal.gov.cz/portal/obcan/ (Czech only)

gives access to final versions of all acts in force published in the Collection. Acts can be searched by their name, number, by the Collection issue number, and using a full-text search (keywords must be entered with Czech diacritics). The texts are only available in Czech.

The texts available via the above mentioned online resources are not binding. The only legally binding versions are the paper-based versions in the Collection of Acts and of the Collection of International Agreements. However, the paper versions of both collections will be replaced by an electronic system („e-Sbírka“) as of 2014.