Compatibility with EC/EU legislation

Brief History

In 1994, Resolution of the Government of the Czech Republic No. 631/1994 of 9 November stipulated the tasks of a specialized body for the European legislation, such body becoming an independent unit for compatibility with EC law under the Office for Legislation and Public Administration (OLPA). The Vice Prime Minister assigned to manage OLPA was then responsible for the coordination and methodology of the work related to the approximation of the laws of the Czech Republic with EC law, so as to fulfil the Czech Republic’s obligations arising from the Europe Agreement establishing an association between the Czech Republic, of the one part, and the European Communities and their Member States, of the other part, through the aforementioned Unit.

Pursuant to Act No. 272/1996 Coll. that amended the Act on Establishment of Ministries and Other Central Authorities (Act No. 2/1969 Coll.), the responsibilities of the Office for Legislation and Public Administration, which included the independent unit for compatibility with EC law, were assigned to the Ministry of Justice of the Czech Republic. In 1997, the independent unit for compatibility with EC law was made into a department.

The Department for Compatibility with EC Law became a part of the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic in March 1999. Due to this fact, the department can now better fulfil its role of the locus of coordination and consultation for the whole public administration.

Structure and work content of the Department for Compatibility with EU Law

  • Unit of Analysis and Consultations
  • Unit for Information on Compatibility with EU law
  • Unit for Legislative Process of the EU

Until 1998, the Department for Compatibility consisted of two units: Unit of Analysis and Consultations and Unit for Information on Compatibility with EC Law. Pursuant to Government Resolution No. 645/1998 of 30 September 1998 on providing translation of European Community law, a new unit named Coordination and Revision Centre was established. In March 2005, the fourth unit of the Department for Compatibility with EU Law was created: Unit for Legislative Process of the EU. In December 2010 the Coordination and Revision Centre was incorporated into Unit for Legislative Process of the EU.

Unit of Analysis and Consultations

The Unit of Analysis and Consultations provides consultation services in the process of the implementation of EU law into the Czech legal system. For this purpose, it primarily provides assessments regarding compatibility of a draft legal act of the Czech Republic with EU law. The assessments are delivered first in the phase of interdepartmental commentary procedure (it is thus a compatibility assessment addressed mainly to the body responsible for drafting of the relevant act) and afterwards also in the phase of negotiating the draft at the government level, as a rule in the Legislative Council of the Government, or where relevant, in working committee of the Legislative Council of the Government (so called revision assessment to be perused by the Legislative Council of the Government or its bodies). The presented drafted act is re-evaluated in the revision assessment as regards the level of compatibility with EU law achieved after the commentary procedure. The objective is that the Government is provided with a legal opinion regarding the drafted acts’ compatibility with EU law, an opinion independent from the body responsible for drafting. The aforementioned assessments of the Department for Compatibility therefore do not affect in any manner the responsibility of the ones in charge of drafting the Czech legal acts (administrators responsible for legislation in question) for the correct implementation of EU law into the Czech legal system.

The Unit of Analysis and Consultations further reconciles completed assessments with the bodies of the state administration in charge, so that the drafted Czech legal acts attain full compatibility with EU law and it advocates these assessments during another phase of the legislative procedure in the Legislative Council of the Government or its working committees. This will ensure that, as far as fulfilling the legislative obligations of the Czech Republic toward the EU is concerned, any discrepancies or other imperfections in the Czech legal acts drafted by the executive shall be to the maximum extent eliminated. Aside from that the Unit of Analysis and Consultations gives its stance on the legal acts drafted by Members of the Chamber of Deputies or the Senate or by councils of local governments and takes a position also on conceptual non-legislative groundwork which has an impact on the legislative procedure with regard to implementation of EU law in the Czech legal system, or more precisely to the fulfilment of the legislative obligations of Czech Republic toward the EU. This Unit annually issues approximately 600 assessments, or more precisely, statements.

Besides the aforementioned work of issuing assessments and statements about compatibility and their settlement within the legislative process, the Unit of Analysis and Consultations also provides for the Government the ad hoc evaluations related to the up-to-date issues concerning the fulfilment of legal obligations ensuing from the membership of the Czech Republic in the EU. It also provides methodical guidance to the bodies of the state administration in the process of implementing the EU law into the Czech legal system.

The work of this Unit follows the Government Legislative Rules (approved by the Government Resolution of 19 March 1998 No. 188, as amended) and the Methodical instructions for the organization of work to meet the legislative obligations ensuing from the membership of the Czech Republic in the European Union (approved by the Government Resolution of 12 October 2005 No. 1304, as amended).

Unit for Information on Compatibility with EU Law

Unit for Information on Compatibility with EU Law provides informational support for all the agenda concerning the implementation of EU law into the legal system of the Czech Republic. For this purpose the interdepartmental Information System for the Approximation of Law - ISAP has been used since 1995 and the Unit is in charge of its operation and management. Databases contained in the ISAP serve as a source of legislative information for the ministries and other bodies of the state administration; they are used for generating the statistical surveys and preparation of documents for the Government of the Czech Republic, the Committee for the European Union and for the data-export to the official databases of the Secretariat General of the European Commission.

The Unit also keeps allocating the coordination roles related to published EU legislative acts to the bodies of the state administration factually responsible for the agenda concerned. After the publication of a piece of legislation in the Official Journal of the EU the Unit monitors the assessment of its implementation by the coordinator, including drawing up a correlation table, if necessary, it further monitors the implementation (the progression of the legislative process in the Czech Republic) and the level of implementation achieved. To this end it inspects the accuracy of data and formal requirements of the correlation tables.

Besides the aforementioned the Unit for Information on Compatibility with EU Law guarantees all the activities connected with the process of notification of the Czech legal acts which transpose directives and performing of the notification requirement as such (including inspection of data provided by the bodies of the state administration in charge) to the database of the European Commission.

Unit for Legislative Process of the EU

The Unit is in charge of the agenda related to the legislative process of the European Union and to negotiations of the drafted acts and other EU documents at national level.

To this end the Unit keeps allocating coordination roles related to EU documents through a database which is part of ISAP to the bodies of the state administration factually responsible for the agenda concerned. The bodies of the state administration use this database also for acquiring and uploading information about the legislative process as it unfolds in the European Union. The Unit also participates in the inspection into fulfilment of the obligations of the Government to the Parliament which ensue from the Chamber of Deputies’ and the Senate’s rules of procedure in accordance with the Government Directive on the procedure for handling of the Council’s documents and other European Union documents, negotiating the matters of the European Union in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic and preparation of Czech language version of legal acts (Directive on handling of the European Union documents), approved by the Government resolution of 6 August 2014 No. 665, as amended.

Another agenda of the Unit is monitoring the legislative impact that the drafts of European Union acts have on the legislation of the Czech Republic. The objective of the monitoring is to create an overall survey of the possible impacts of the drafted EU legislative acts on the Czech legal system which would enable seeing them already in the phase of negotiations in the institutions of the EU. Continuous analysis of the legislative impacts serves the timely preparation of the national implementing acts and lowers the risk of not meeting the legislative obligations ensuing from the membership of the Czech Republic in the European Union. The updating and classification of information about the legislative impacts is pursued through a database, which is part of ISAP.

In the context of completing the Czech language version of the EU legal acts the Unit prepares documents both for the Jurists/linguists working group of the Council and the working group of the Council for codification of legislation, through which the texts of the drafted EU legislative acts are assessed from jurist-linguistic and legislative-technical standpoint before their adoption by the Council. The Unit also processes and assesses the requests of the bodies of the state administration and other entities to publish a corrigendum of the EU legal acts already published in the Official Journal of the EU and it provides comments regarding accuracy of the Czech translations of international treaties concluded within the European Union. The Unit likewise cooperates with translation units of the EU institutions with regards to translation of terminology, and in relation to this it organizes, for instance, regular seminars on EU law-making.

The participation of the staff of the Unit on meetings of Ministerial Coordination Groups and the interdepartmental Committee for the European Union ensures close cooperation with individual departments and other central bodies of the state administration.

Contacts

Secretariat of the Department
Naďa Šamonilová
tel.: 296 153 192
fax: 296153132
e-mail: samonilova.nada@vlada.cz

Secretariat of the Unit of Analysis and Consultations
Jana Korousová
tel.: 296 153 468
e-mail: korousova.jana@vlada.cz

Secretariat of the Unit for Information
tel.: 296 153 393
e-mail: postaisap@vlada.cz

Secretariat of the Coordination and Revision Centre
Lenka Kubíčková
tel.: 296 153 207
e-mail: lenka.kubickova@vlada.cz


 

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