The Czech Republic has made significant progress over the past year in reforming the public prosecutor’s offices and in completing a review of conflict of interest legislation, but still has shortcomings in investigating high-level corruption cases, said the European Commission (EC) in its annual report today.
Despite progress in some areas, the Commission’s report on the state of the rule of law in each EU member state said the Czech Republic was also facing problems in implementing reforms on transparency of information on media ownership.
According to Czech EC Vice-President Vera Jourova, the Commissioner for Values and Transparency, whose team coordinated the preparation of the fifth annual report, the recommendations also said the Czech Republic should introduce a law on lobbying. It is also important to ensure sufficient funding for public media in the Czech Republic, she warned.
“The Czechs are such a solid, let’s say, average, although it is hard to measure,” Jourova said, comparing the state of the rule of law with other EU countries. She said the Czech Republic had a stable system and there had been “no attempts to corrupt the judiciary and limit the independence of the courts, nor attempts to grab the media by politicians”.
“These are things we see in some member states, but not in the Czech Republic, which is very good news,” she added.
As in the past three years, the EU executive has divided the assessment into four chapters on judicial systems, the fight against corruption, media pluralism and the overall checks and balances of institutions.
In the case of the Czech Republic, Brussels sees positive developments in the area of justice.
“The Czech Republic has made good progress in continuing the reform of the prosecution system, and some progress has been made in taking measures to reduce the length of proceedings and to ensure the independence of investigations and prosecution in high-level corruption cases,” says the report.
The EU executive recommends that the Czech Republic take measures to address the remuneration of judges and other staff in the justice system.
The Czech authorities should also ensure that rules or mechanisms are in place for the provision of funding to public service media, so that they can fulfil their public service mission while guaranteeing their independence.
Overall, corruption is still perceived very intensely by the Czech public. A Eurobarometer survey, cited in the EC report, found that 79% of Czechs identified corruption as a huge problem affecting their lives. The EU average was 68%. Jourova said the Czech Republic should “speed up the handling of high-profile corruption cases and focus on getting clear and definitive judgments”. Failure to act in this area has long contributed to a certain distrust of the judiciary, Jourova added.
