10th September 2012

Legislative intent of a Bill on Protection of Whistleblowers

The Legislative Council of the Government has put forth a proposal of a legislative intent of a Bill on Protection of Whistleblowers and Corruption Informants (návrh věcného záměru o legislativním řešení whistleblowingu a ochrany oznamovatelů). The analysis on which the legislative intent is based was approved by the Government at its session in June (for further information regarding the analysis, click here). The Government intends to implement the Bill on Protection of Whistleblowers for two reasons: (1) the process of whistleblowing should help in anti-corruption fight; (2) there is no implementation of such process, thus the informants find no legal protection in existing Acts. The legislative intent includes a definition of whistleblowing as any acting breaching “good manner”. The Council claims that such broad definition is in comparison the broadest so that it could apply for any even possible announcement of corruption act. Several variants of the Bill has been proposed; they differ in stipulating the bone of illegal acting (any illegal acting or only bribery) and persons to whom the legal protection should be secured (employees or any natural person). The Council prefers integration of the Bill into the Anti-discrimination Act with stipulating protection only of employees for informing of any illegal acting.  
The Legislative Council of the Government invites any prompts till 25 September.
For further information, click here.

Members of the American Chamber of Commerce in the Czech Republic