Prague, July 20 (CTK) – The Czech Pirates want to submit a draft amendment to the law on the right to information next week in order to apply the duty to provide requested information to the CEZ state-controlled power utility, Pirates deputy chairman Jakub Michalek said today in reaction a recent verdict.
On Tuesday, the Constitutional Court (US) ruled that CEZ does not have to comply with information requests according to the law on the right to information.
“The Constitutional Court in fact took away the last check over the functioning of the energy giant that has financed dirty politics and a number of private projects linked via clientelist networks. But nobody can gain precise evidence because CEZ keeps all data on its orders secret,” Michalek said.
The US abolished the previous verdicts by the Prague Municipal Court and the Supreme Administrative Court, saying they breached the basic right to fundamental protection and the right to own property and do business.
US chairman Pavel Rychetsky said CEZ is not a public institution that must provide information in accordance with the law on free access to information.
A group of senators has been working on an amendment that would impose the duty to provide information on CEZ, except for data subject to trade secrets.
Michalek said the amendment would declare that the duty to provide information applies to all companies controlled by the state or public entities.
The observance of this law is to be supervised by the deputy head of the Office for Personal Data Protection (UOOU).
“It has turned out that court control is to slow,” Michalek said in explanation of the need to introduce the amendment.
CEZ has been locked in a long-lasting dispute with the civic association called “Within the emergency zone of the Temelin nuclear power plant,” to which it did not give information required. The activists asked for the complete passports of the specific type of fuel from Westinghouse and analyses of its suitability for the plant in Temelin, south Bohemia, in 2006, but CEZ did not comply with the request, referring to the trade secret.
CEZ said the information duty disadvantaged it in relation to the competitors on the energy market.
