Representatives overrode the president’s first veto

“If we allow it, we will reduce the confidence of the Czech people in the judiciary,” Helena Válková, former justice minister for the ANO movement, warned her colleagues at a plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies.

She called the president’s veto an “opportunity” for the government to change the law further.

However, Justice Minister Pavel Blažek (ODS) rejected it. He recalled that the abolition of associate judges had already been discussed in the courts in 2010. “I would like to emphasize that not a single reporter from the judiciary spoke against the proposal,” he said, saying that he received letters of thanks from the courts.

In the end, the coalition and pirate MPs expelled the president with 107 votes.

The government pushed the change as part of reducing bureaucracy, with the expectation of annual savings of eight million. According to the change, judges related to labor law disputes could not be decided in the civil field and they ceased to be involved in criminal panels of district courts. The proceedings would always be presided over by one judge. The restriction of the lay element in the amendment also applies to certain criminal proceedings before regional courts.

In his letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Markéta Pekarová Adamová (TOP 09), the President urged the government to consider improving rather than reducing the system of lay assistants. “There should have been a detailed political debate before accepting such an important change in the judiciary as one of the pillars of democracy so that the bill would have more support even among the voices of the opposition,” said the head of state.

“I consider it a priority for all changes in the judiciary not to reduce the legal certainty of citizens. I believe that the adopted change is absurd, insufficiently and vaguely justified, and very unusual in the context of European legal culture,” he said.

Associates are not to decide in disputes about civil or labor law, they stopped working in criminal panels of district courts. These courts shall have one judge. The restriction will also apply in some criminal cases before regional courts.