Prague, Nov 27 (CTK) – The military and police enjoy the highest public trust out of selected institutions in the Czech Republic, while the churches, press, TV and NGOs are the least trusted, according to the poll conducted by the CVVM polling centre in October and released on Monday.
Most Czechs also trust courts and banks. On the contrary, only one-third of people trust press and NGOs.
Some two-thirds of respondents trust the military and the police, while banks and courts enjoy the same trust of 53 percent.
Mistrust prevails in relation to other institutions, though only slightly in the case of radio, opinion polls and the Internet. Forty-six percent of Czechs trust radio, 44 percent trust opinion polls and 43 percent the Internet.
Trade unions provoke a lower trust of 38 percent, followed by TV channels trusted by mere 35 percent and NGOs by 32 percent.
Some 30 percent trust press, while only 20 percent churches.
The CVVM pollsters say the low confidence in churches in the past few years is apparently connected with the negative public stance on the restitution law from 2012 that returns the churches their property confiscated by the communist regime and guarantees a high financial compensation to them for unreturned property to be paid during the following 30 years.
Moreover, 6 percent of Czechs do not trust any of the 12 institutions in the poll, 25 percent trust one to three institutions, another quarter trust eight and more institutions, while the remaining 45 percent trust four to seven institutions.
There are no significant differences in the perception of institutions among various age and gender groups and people with a different political orientation.
Only trust in the Internet is considerably declining with a rising age as 70 percent of people aged 15-19 trust it, compared to 46 percent in the generation of their parents and 30 percent of the elderly.
Public trust in the police has increased by 4 percentage points to 64 percent, while trust in the military and courts remains unchanged. Banks enjoy the so far highest trust now.
On the contrary, trust in NGOs has hit the bottom. It has been constantly declining since 2014 when it was some 40 percent.
The trustworthiness of NGOs is probably affected by their involvement in the tackling of the refugee crisis, CVVM pollsters say.
Public confidence in the media has been decreasing, too, in the past six years and opinion pols are also less trusted.
The CVVM poll was conducted on a sample of 934 respondents over 15 on October 9-19.
