Prague, May 23 (CTK) – The Czech Civic Democrats (ODS) want the deletion of obsolete norms that are no longer applied but still continue burdening the country’s legal order, they told media on Wednesday, presenting a bill abolishing 63 laws and directives issued in 1919, in the wake of the birth of Czechoslovakia.
The opposition ODS wants to seek a gradual abolition of further obsolete norms from later periods.
Up to several thousands of them should be abolished, ODS chairman Petr Fiala said.
“We are convinced that we have too much bureaucracy, that many problems in the country have been unnecessarily tackled by means of legislation instead of using common sense,” Fiala said.
He said the ODS has been promising the abolition of obsolete laws for a long time, but it cannot wait with the task until its coming to power, which is why it has started initiating the abolition already now.
MP Marek Benda (ODS) said the party wants to start proposing the abolition of long-unused norms from the period of the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918-1938), a step that is symbolical in 2018, when 100 years will elapse since the establishment of the joint state of Czechs and Slovaks from 1918-1992.
“The First Republic [norms] will be quite easy to abolish. Of course, after we reach the communist period [norms], the task will become more complex, it will be more difficult to assess what should be abolished,” Benda said.
“Nonetheless, we consider it necessary to finally start making order, since the number of valid laws and directives is really excessive in our country,” he added.
Benda said the ODS will turn to the public and ask it to propose the bills for abolition.
“We want to make a nationwide phenomenon of this, aimed to simplify our legal order,” he said.
In addition, the ODS plans to start releasing a list of newly passed and newly abolished regulations after every lower house session.
“We will highlight the new duties for citizens and businessmen to fulfil, so that everybody knows how many pointless regulations arise every day without the old ones being abolished,” ODS deputies’ group chairman Zbynek Stanjura said.
