Czech Senate agrees with life immunity abolition at second try

published: 20.03.2013, 13:57 | updated: 20.03.2013 13:58:56

Prague - Czech MPs and constitutional judges´ life immunity will be abolished now that the Senate, upper house of parliament, passed at a second try today a constitutional amendment that the president cannot veto.

The amendment was supported by 58 senator, which is more than the required three-fifth majority of senators present.

In the situation where 71 senator were present today, the votes of 43 senators would have been sufficient.

Representatives of the senior ruling Civic Democratic Party (ODS) were against the amendment. They wanted immunity to be restricted only to speeches made in parliament.

The amendment does not allow criminal proceedings to be launched against a Chamber of Deputies member or a senator without agreement of the respective house of parliament.

In cases where the Chamber of Deputies or the Senate would not agree with extraditing an MP for criminal prosecution, the MP could be prosecuted after his/her mandate´ end.

This also applies to judges of the Constitutional Court whose prosecution requires agreement of the Senate.

The amendment will take effect on the first day of the calendar month following its promulgation in the Digest of Laws, which may be on April 1 already.

It will depend on whether President Milos Zeman signs the amendment by the end of March.

The MPs were dealing with a similar draft amendment less than one year ago, but it was not supported in the Senate.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz

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