For the thirteenth time, interested professionals can vote for a legislative act that, in their opinion, had the most positive impact on the stabilisation of the business environment in the Czech Republic last year. This year, the nomination committee has chosen five legal regulations for which it is possible to vote until 11 April 2022. The final results will be announced on 20 April.
The Act of the Year survey is organised by Deloitte together with the law firm Deloitte Legal under the auspices of the Czech Chamber of Commerce, the Czech Bar Association and the Chamber of Tax Advisers of the Czech Republic. “We have been organising the Act of the Year for thirteen years together with our social and business partners so that we can instigate the system involvement of entrepreneurs in regulation drafting and the business environment overall refining. If something is supposed to work, there has to be a consensus of a critical part of the community. The consensus on which regulation can be good and why is reached through the repeated submission of the examples of new regulations for discussion and the unification of perspectives across the Czech business community”, explains Tomáš Babáček, Chairman of the nomination committee and Deloitte Legal Partner.
1. Legal predictability – disclosure of lower courts’ rulings (part of the amendment to the Act on Courts and Judges)
“This short section may lead to a revolution in a positive way. The disclosure of all rulings in one transparent database is a prerequisite for legal predictability and unification”, says Štěpán Holub, Partner at the Holubová advokáti law firm, in relation to the part of the act, due to which the decisions of district, regional and high courts will now be disclosed in a publicly available on-line database.
2. Recodification of the Construction Act (the new Construction Act)
“The new Construction Act should, in our perspective, represent a major step forward and even though we had some objections to it, we still promoted its adoption. We see its nomination as an appreciation of its importance and the necessity of a substantial and comprehensive adjustment of complicated permit processes. It is, actually, an expression of the support of these necessary adjustments”, states František Chaloupecký, Vice-President of the Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic, commenting on the new amendment to the Construction Act that should materially simplify and speed up building permit processes.
3. ‘Summer of Grace’ (part of the amendment to the Enforcement Code)
“I see the benefit of the ‘Summer of Grace’ principally in the fact that it at least partially addresses the long-term and thorny social issue, i.e. a large amount of people in a debt trap. These people often scratch a living in the grey zone of the economy, are not motivated to look for a standard job with an official, taxable income or achieve higher earnings. The return of, at least, part of the debtors to the legal economy is desired. This will also bring relief to employers who are burdened with the agenda related to wage deductions” states Monika Čírtková from JUDr. Monika Čírtková law firm, describing the positive impacts of the ‘Summer of Grace’, when the people stuck in a debt trap could have paid their debts owed to the state in a three-month period with no interest on late payment and other accessories.
4. Catalogue of sustainable economic activities (technical sustainability criteria)
“Taxonomy brings transparency to assessing which economic activities are sustainable based on current scientific findings, in this case in terms of the climate change mitigation and adaptation. This way, a valuable tool is created that prevents unfounded “green” statements, simplifies the management of climate risks for companies and redirects finances from unsustainable projects to truly sustainable ones”, states the nomination committee justifying its decision on why exactly this act of the European Commission is one of the nominated regulations.
5. Digitisation of notarial activities (amendment to the Notarial Code)
What does the new act on the digitisation of notarial activities bring? Notarial minutes e.g. of general meetings written via videoconferences, online foundation of limited liability companies, facilitation of obtaining apostilles, verification of electronic signatures, web portal enabling immediate contact with any notary available. “Every further step to computerisation is, naturally, a right step. However, the legislative body must not forget to preserve the right of the public to communicate also in the traditional “offline” way, i.e. by post or in person,” reminds Štěpán Holub, Partner at the Holubová advokáti law firm.
Which one of these legal regulations is the act of the year in your opinion? Vote in the survey on the Act of the Year’s website!
This year’s topic – real estate regulation
The Act of the Year is not only the survey. Every year, it also opens a selected legislative topic with the intention to raise awareness among the general public by holding discussions, webinars, online workshops and other additional events during the year. This year’s topic is the regulation of real estate. “After the future of regulation, digital regulation and environmental regulation, we would like to bring the regulation of real estate closer to the public and open a discussion on the topic which is essential for a good functioning of society,” says Tomáš Babáček.
Seminars, webcasts, business breakfasts and other events organized by Deloitte.
