Brno, Dec 15 (CTK) – Five of the 15 judges of the Czech Constitutional Court (US) pushed for the abolition of the whole law on the electronic registration of sales (EET), which the US finally upheld on Friday, except some of its parts, they wrote in a joint position.
EET was among the most disputed bills passed in the previous election period.
The EET opponents among the judges criticised it as an anti-constitutional interference in the business environment.
“If the US intends…to tolerate even so resolute and undifferentiated interferences in the business environment and in the fundamental rights of the tax subjects, the question is what role in the constitutional system it intends to play,” the five judges opposed to the EET law, Vojtech Simicek, Jaromir Jirsa, Tomas Lichovnik, Katerina Simackova and David Uhlir, wrote.
They said tax discipline, which was the previous government’s argument in support of the EET, is not always the supreme value.
“Sometimes the interest in it should slightly give way to the preservation of a strong group of active, creative, self-confident and courageous people who prefer the risk of running business to having themselves employed,” the five judges wrote.
They said for many tradespeople, the EET might become “the last straw” making them give up their business or forcing them into grey economy, which consequently vacates the path for their big competitors towards a corporate state of big entrepreneurs.
“This gives the birth to a small extremely rich elite on the one hand, and better or worse paid employees on the other,” the judges wrote.
Another two judges shared a minority position in the US’s vote to scrap the planned introduction of the third and fourth phases of the EET applying to further groups of businesses.
The two judges are Marie Tomkova, who said the US took the step, though the complainants’ challenging the law, which were right-wing opposition deputies, had not demanded it in their complaint, and Josef Fiala, who has not released his arguments against the decision yet.
