Prague, July 20 (CTK) – Some Czech state-controlled companies will be granted an exemption to the duty to release all their contracts in the central online register since the Senate did not block the passage of the amendment to relevant law today.
The central online register also will not include collective bargaining agreements and contracts concerning the handling of explosives, according to the amendment drafted by lower house deputies.
The Senate neither supported nor rejected the amendment, nor it made any statement on it. As a result, it is to be signed by the president into law.
The law on online register of contracts has applied to state, regional and municipal companies and other organisations since mid-2016. The state-controlled CEZ power utility was exempted from the duty then.
Under the legislation, all contracts worth more than 50,000 crowns must be released in the register. The rule that all contracts not released in the register will be invalid took effect this month.
A group of MPs proposed to the Chamber of Deputies that the Budejovicky Budvar state-owned brewery need not release contracts in the central register, but the Chamber approved exemptions for all state-run firms in February, which the Senate rejected.
The Chamber has the power to override the senators’ veto, yet it has not taken the vote on the bill yet. Instead, it speedily passed a new amendment. On the recommendation of its constitutional and legal commission, the Senate criticised the Chamber for this today. The Chamber’s deputy chairman Radek Vondracek (ANO) rejected the criticism.
In the discussion held today, many senators shared the view that this amendment is better than no amendment, while others proposed that the law on the online register be abolished.
Senator Radko Martinek (Social Democrats, CSSD) said the law would be challenged at the Constitutional Court.
($1=22.572 crowns)
