Czech lower house asks government to halt activities of extremist parties and others

Today the Czech lower house asked the government to file a motion with the Supreme Administrative Court to dissolve 11 political parties and to halt the activities of another 73 groups. The reason is that the parties either did not deliver complete annual financial reports for last year or did not deliver them at all. None of the parties currently holding seats in parliament are among them. The Czech Press Agency reports that the extreme-right Workers’ Social Justice Party (Dělnická strana sociální spravedlnosti – DSSS) has been recommended as one of the parties whose activities should be halted.

The government should address the lower chamber’s request by the end of September. However, the Constitutional Court has previously ruled that it is only possible to punish political groups in this way if they repeatedly file annual reports that contain errors.

Complete reports were submitted by 68 groups including the parliamentary parties of the Czech Social Democrats (ČSSD), Civic Democrats (ODS), TOP 09, Mayors and Independents (Starostové a nezávislí), the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM), Public Affairs (Věci veřejné – VV), the Christian Democrats (KDU-ČSL) and NorthBohemians.cz (Severočeši.cz). Mayors and Independents has also completed its report for 2009. Due to the errors they were unable to receive the state contribution for their senators, which will now be paid. Other parties whose financial reports were complete include Jana Bobošíková’s Sovereignty Party (Suverenita), the Citizens’ Rights Party (Strana práv občanů – zemanovci) and the Green Party (Strana zelených).

The reports are vetted by members of the Monitoring Committee in the lower house. “The subject of the review was the completeness of the reports, not questions that are better answered by other bodies of the state administration,” Czech MP Vladimír Koníček (KSČM) told the Czech Press Agency.

According to the lower house resolution, those parties at risk of abolition include the Agrarian Party (Agrární straně), the Democratic Party of Czechoslovakia (Demokratická strana Československa), the Association for the Republic – Republican Party of Czechoslovakia (Sdružení pro republiku – Republikánská strana Československa) and the Roma Democratic Social Party (Romská demokratická sociální strana).The extremist Workers’ Social Justice Party (Dělnická strana sociální spravedlnosti), the Citizens.cz Party (Občané.cz) of the former founder of ODS, Petr Havlík, and Petr Mach’s eurosceptic Free Citizens’ Party (Strana svobodných občanů) are among those parties whose activities the lower house has recommended suspending, as are the SNK European Democrats (SNK Evropští demokraté). At the end of 2010, 178 political parties and movements total were registered in the Czech Republic.