Premier Mirek Topolánek Opened 11th ISSS Conference

Premier M. Topolánek today opened the 11th conference on the Internet in State Administration and Local Government held in Hradec Králové. Part of the conference, taking place on April 7 and 8, 2008, will be the fifth working meeting of the delegations from the Visegrad countries V4DIS (Visegrad Four for Developing Information Society).

In his speech, the Premier declared the Government’s interest in putting the Czech Republic among the top five countries with the best communication between their state administration sector and citizens by means of the information technology. “We have given the Government the task of putting the country, which is currently at the end of the list of EU states in terms of e-Government, among the top five countries by the end of the current term of office“ said the Premier.

“We want to switch the state administration sector from a long-term “off-line“ regime to “online“, added the Premier. “We have launched into operation the Czech POINT system which helps citizens in communicating with the state administration sector from a single place and in efficiently handling all their official business from their home computers,“ said the Premier and stressed that as many as 1,400 communities are already linked up in the project. “Which is good news,“ added Mirek Topolánek.

The Premier then gave a list of the laws the Government has drafted or is drafting as part of its drive to improve communication between the state administration and citizenry in the Czech Republic. These are the following laws:
- e-Government Act (approved by the Government in February 2008, submitted to the House of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, second reading)
- Archives Act (prepared for Government discussion in June 2008)
- Identity Cards Act (e-OP) (prepared for Government discussion - exact date not yet known)
- Basic Registers Act (prepared for Government discussion in September 2008)
- Register of Persons Act (prepared for Government discussion in August 2008)
- Register of Rights and Duties Act (prepared for Government discussion in August 2008)
- Register of Territorial Identification Act (prepared for Government discussion in August 2008)
- Register of Inhabitants Act (prepared for Government discussion in August 2008)
- e-Collection and e-Legislation Act (prepared for Government discussion in October 2008)
- Collection of Valid Legal Regulations Act (prepared for Government discussion in May 2009)

“For its part, the e-Health project will facilitate work for the health-care professionals, while improving citizens´ access to information, for instance on the reform and prices of medicaments. We have also launched the project e-Justice. The first sections of the system of electronic and Internet judiciary has been in operation since October 1,“ said Premier M. Topolánek. “Within the e-Justice project we have already launched into operation the following: e-Registry (full-scale operation started in October 2007), Bankruptcy Register (full operation launched in January 2008), InfoCourt – launched in February 2008 (Commercial Register – statements from records or Czech Pointech), Register of Sentences, Electronic pay order (signed by the President on April 2, 2008) and Official Information Board (project in June 2008; implementation in December 2008, this system will provide Internet access to topical information).

“I can say to the best of my knowledge that these changes are no abstract projects for us. These are no attempts at solemnly declaring an “information society“ with the aim of spending the Government’s and EU billions, at ticking off a task as completed but virtually leaving everything unchanged. We start by changing things ourselves,“ stressed the Premier.


Jana Bartošová, press spokesperson of the Government of the Czech Republic