Czechia in Kosovo-like situation, Constitutional Court cancels movement restrictions

Even the assembly stop has been released.

After the Prague Administrative Court declared restrictions on the Corona crisis as incompatible with the law, the Czech government in a few hours annulled all restrictions on freedom of movement, including opening borders. For human rights activists like Anna yabatová and her husband, Petr Uhl, good news. The “began to disturb us, which we cannot move more legally”, says ♫abatová for Deutsche Ellen. They both have a holiday house in Germany, “1.7 km away from the” border. “No exception was made for us”, says abatová.

Polish director Chrystyna Krause, who has lived for years in Prague, also welcomes the decision. She says she had to stay trapped in a village in South Bohemia at the beginning of the <x0.9. Happy is the carpenter Zada calling. Free! ” “reduce customers!”, she says. The film's producer, Petr Yančárek, relates how he spent days of the Corona crisis. “30 years, half a life was not allowed to travel west. I remembered this time of <x7. Petr is now relieved.

Thursday (23.04.) The Prague Administrative Court declared four health ministry regulations to be legal violations. Two restricted freedom of movement, others retail trade. The judge, quite recently, argued that restrictions on basic rights are allowed to be limited by the government only in accordance with the crisis law. He gave government officials in Czechia until Monday to improve the legal situation.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babık's cabinet declared the state of emergency in the country on 12 March for 30 days. Parliament extended it until the end of April and approved the restrictions on how the law envisions crises. But the government later withdrew these decisions. Health Minister Adam Vojtitch brought his decisions back into force, but this time as a legal basis, the law on the protection of public health served.

Health expert Ondão Dostál, who put the government on trial, was delighted with the court's decision. “From the point of view of a democratic state we have also moved a step forward”a, he said in conversation with the newspaper “Hospodáêské noviny”. Well-known defense lawyer in Czechia, Tomáš Sokol, told Deutsche Ellen that the “government abandoned the relatively secure legal zone, which gave the law on crises to impose restrictions and jeopardised the health protection law as reasoning for the same stoppages.” It was not surprising that the court did not accept these, Sokol says.

Journalist and former ambassador to Paris Petr Janyška says that “was an important court decision, showing the executive, even in crisis cases, to abide by laws.” Janyška says she would not be surprised if Prime Minister Babık did not question that decision. True, Health Minister Vojt issue has immediately revealed the appeal to abolish this decision. The Czech government made a decision Friday that it will seek in parliament extending the state of emergency by 25 May. /DW