Czech lower house committee proposes suspending activities of extremist parties

All of the parties elected to parliament have delivered their complete financial reports for last year to the Czech lower house, even though some of them had to be asked to supply missing data. Failure to fulfill this legal obligation means that 11 party coalitions and another 73 parties now face the possibility that their activities will be suspended. The Monitoring Committee of the lower house approved a resolution today calling for the suspensions.

Complete reports have been submitted by 68 political parties, including those with seats in parliament such as the Czech Social Democrats (ČSSD), the 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 also added data missing from their report for 2009. Their error meant until now they have not been able to draw the state contribution for their senators, which can 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).

According to the resolution, parties such as the Agrarian Party (Agrární strana), 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) are now at risk of being dissolved. 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).

The committee is now submitting its resolution to the lower house. Should it be approved, the lower house will then ask the government to propose to the Supreme Administrative Court that these parties be dissolved or that their activities be suspended. However, the Constitutional Court has previously ruled that political groups may only be punished in this way if their annual reports repeatedly contain errors.