Anti-Corruption and Integrity Outlook 2024 – Country Notes: Czechia

Contextual factors

 

State structure	Executive power	Legislative system	Legal system
Unitary	Parliamentary	Bicameral	Civil law

Strategy and institutions on anti-corruption and public integrity

Czechia has adopted the Government Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2023-2026 which covers four priority areas: 1) an independent executive; 2) transparency and open access to information; 3) economical management of state property; 4) and civil society development. The Strategy is complemented by the Government’s Action Plan to Fight Corruption for 2023-2024 which provides specific measures for each of the priority areas.

The Conflict of Interests and Anti-Corruption Department of the Ministry of Justice is the central body responsible for coordinating the implementation of the Government’s Anti-Corruption Action Plan, whistleblower protection and supervising conflict-of-interest situations. Czechia has a central government body responsible for harmonising internal control and internal audit (Ministry of Finance) as well as a supervisory body for open data policy (Office of the Chief Government Architect, within the Ministry of the Interior), public information (Office for Personal Data Protection) and an independent body for political finance (Office for the Supervision of the Finances of Political Parties and Political Movements). However, there are no central government bodies responsible for overseeing transparency of lobbying activities.

Overview

 

Greatest strengths	Areas to improve
Conflict of interest - regulation	Lobbying - regulation
Political finance - regulation	Corruption risk management and audit
Anti-corruption strategy	Political finance - implementation

Anti-corruption strategy

Czechia’s Government Anti-Corruption Strategy 2023-2026 was developed on the basis of an assessment of public integrity risks, as was its predecessor strategy. The Strategy underwent an extended consultation process, which included inputs on the draft strategy by the Government Council for coordinating the fight against corruption, consisting of representatives from government, law enforcement authorities, territorial self-governing units, economic partners, professional chambers, non-profit organisations and the academic sector. However, the Strategy does not include outcome-level indicators with target values. The Strategy is complemented by an online available Action Plan which specifies a responsible authority for each of its measures. While specifies monitoring, reporting and evaluation arrangements and monitoring reports of the previous Action Plan (2021-2022) are published online, the current monitoring reports do not report progress against pre-defined indicators and targets in the Action Plan. Moreover, the Action Plan does not include financial plans for its implementation.

Corruption risk management and audit

As measured against OECD standards on risk management, which includes internal control and internal audit, Czechia fulfils 64% of criteria for regulations and 40% for practice, compared to the OECD average of 67% and 33%, respectively. In contrast to most OECD countries, Czechia has no standards of conduct and ethical behaviour applicable for ministers, members of parliament and other political appointees. Furthermore, the country lacks internal audit and risk-based approaches in practice. Currently, the legislation does not set requirements for a minimum number of auditors. Not all institutions develop their audit plans using data from an entity-wide risk register and the internal audit function’s risk assessment, and only a few of the audit plans include integrity-specific objectives aimed at reducing fraud and other public integrity risks. Czechia does not track how many public organisations were audited, but 77% of the recommendations made by internal audit units were implemented within one year.

Lobbying

As measured against OECD standards on lobbying, Czechia fulfils 25% of criteria for regulations and 11% for practice, compared to the OECD average of 38% and 35%, respectively. While there are cooling off periods for public officials, Czechia currently has no other regulation on lobbying activities. Regulating lobbying activities is essential to avert capture of public policies by special interests. A regulatory framework that establishes clear definitions for lobbying can help to ensure that lobbying enhances rather than inhibits effective policymaking. Additional disclosure requirements such as a lobbying register increase transparency, thus enabling public awareness of the actors influencing policy. Czechia is in the process of adopting legislation aiming to strengthen regulations on lobbying and increase transparency of lobbying activities.

Conflict of interest

As measured against OECD standards on conflict of interest, Czechia fulfils 100% of criteria for regulations and 44% for practice, compared to the OECD average of 76% and 40%, respectively. Regulations comprehensively define conflict-of-interest situations for various levels of government and include proportional sanctions for breaches of conflict-of-interest provisions. They require interest declarations at the beginning, annually and at the end of public employment from members of Government, parliament, and highest bodies of the judiciary as well as for public employees in a high-risk position. The Submission rate of interest declarations is close to 100% for members of Government, parliament and the judiciary.

However, only 8.6% and 5.6% of declarations filed during 2021 and 2020, respectively, were verified by the responsible authority. The Conflict-of-Interests and Anti-Corruption Department of the Ministry of Justice, which is responsible for the implementation of the Act on Conflict of Interest, does not have the power to issue sanctions for non-compliance, as individual local authorities are in charge of issuing administrative penalties.

Political finance

As measured against OECD standards on political finance, Czechia fulfils all criteria for regulations and 57% for practice, compared to the OECD average of 73% and 58%, respectively. Czechia's regulations include personal liability for electoral candidates who violate political finance rules, sanctions proportional to the entity of breaches and bans on anonymous donations, contributions from foreign entities as well as from publicly owned enterprises. Stringent limits on campaign expenses, comprehensive reporting requirements, and mandatory public disclosure of party finances are in place.

In practice, however, not all parties have submitted annual reports within the timelines defined by national legislation for the past five years. These are typically political parties not represented in the Parliament and not receiving contributions from the state budget. While the Office for the Supervision of the Finances of Political Parties and Political Movements does not employ certified auditors on its payroll, political parties are required to have their accounts audited annually by an external certified auditor.

Transparency of public information

As measured against OECD standards on public information, which includes access to information and open data, Czechia fulfils 78% of criteria for regulations and 65% for practice, compared to the OECD average of 67% and 62%, respectively.

Czechia’s regulations on access to public information provide that everyone, including non-citizens and legal persons, have the right to access information in all the forms available. The only restrictions to access to public information allowed are listed in the Law on Free Access and in line with the Tromso Convention. However, information requested is not always provided free of charge. Nevertheless, Czechia’s primary legislation specifies that Government data are “open by default”. Inspections of compliance are carried out by the Office for Personal Data Protection in review proceedings, but this entity does not impose sanctions for breaches of the Freedom of Information Act.

Agendas and minutes of government sessions, draft laws and results of public tenders are proactively disclosed. Reforms in 2024 introduced a repository of consolidated of primary and secondary legislation that is publicly available. There are aggregated data available regarding the asset declarations of elected officials, members of the judiciary and senior civil servants, however the declarations are not proactively disclosed.