Source: Materiál – Portál Aplikace Odok
Interdepartmental proceedings on an amended draft Bill to transpose the EU Directive on whistleblowing continue in the Czech Republic.
NGO Oživení, report they have seen developments in aspects of the proposed bill that they had previously raised concerns about.
In the anonymous reporting of the draft law, Oživení said:
We expect a compromise regarding anonymous reporting: The External reporting channels offered by the Ministry of Justice will be obliged to accept anonymous reports while internal reporting channels will be free to choose whether they accept anonymous reports or not.
On the material scope of the draft law Oživení said:
Together with other NGOs, we opened a debate on the material scope of the Bill, but the outcome (if any) is now a very formalistic approach. For example, it would be possible to report misdemeanours punishable by a fine of 200,000 CZK or higher.
This approach would include more breaches of law into the material scope of the law but only to some extent. This would create a very difficult situation when deciding what is reportable under the law and what is not. Therefore, we are still waiting for the political will of the governing coalition.
According to Oživení, there are other problematic parts of the draft law:
We would also like to see guaranteed protection against retaliation when notifying a superior employee. Furthermore, we find the external reporting mechanism is insufficiently regulated under the draft law because there is no obligation to follow up on the results of the investigation of the competent authority to which the report has been forwarded.
The Commission on Whistleblowing will discuss the bill at the end of September which will likely come into effect in July 2023.