The Right to Digital Services is the Act of the Year

Prague, 29 April 2020 – The topic “Digital state: Circulate data, not people” referring to the Act on the Right to Digital Services became the winner of the 11^th edition of Act of the Year survey. The deputy’s act establishes a general right to communicate with state authorities in a digital form, creating a legal framework based on which all state administration services are to be digitalised within five years.

The Act of the Year has been organised by Deloitte and its legal firm Deloitte Legal since 2010. From five nominees, hundreds of entrepreneurs selected the best legal regulation, collection of laws or legislative act with a positive impact on the Czech business sector. As for previous years the Chamber of Commerce of the Czech Republic and the Czech Bar Association took patronage of the competition, joined this year by the Chamber of Tax Advisors of the Czech Republic. The nomination board comprised of experts from various (not only business) areas.

“For the second consecutive year, the winner was chosen by a large margin. Last year, the winning act related to fast-tracking the construction of transport, water and energy infrastructure; this year, it is digitalisation of the state administration, which received almost half of all votes. The nomination board again showed an inspiring example of the beneficial effects of regulation. Regulation may increase efficiency and create infrastructure for the involvement of entrepreneurs and the non-profit sector in addressing the needs of the society,” said Tomáš Babáček, Attorney-at-Law at Deloitte Legal, the head of the nomination board and the Act of the Year project leader.

Act No. 12/2020 Coll., on the Right to Digital Services and on Changes to Some Other Acts, requires, among other things, the issuance of necessary electronic forms and interconnection of registers to eliminate situations when people have to carry documents from one authority to another. The act was adopted by Deputies and Senators across the political spectrum.

“The crisis has shown how much easier things could be for us if digitalisation was at a more advanced level. The Act on the Right to Digital Services means tremendous progress – the state agendas will be digitalised within five years. The act is also ground-breaking in bringing citizens to the front by stipulating that citizens have got not only obligations, but also rights in relation to the state,” added Martin Kupka, Deputy and a co-author of the winning piece of legislation.  

“The winning act fundamentally changes the approach to the legislative framework of digitalisation. This act creates conditions for accelerating the completion of an interconnected public administration data fund and starting blanket mandatory share of data once obtained about each entrepreneur or a citizen by all competent authorities. I greatly appreciate that no Deputy or Senator voted against the winning act. Even the act which scored second is revolutionary in a sense as it substantially improves the clarity of domestic law,” said Vladimír Dlouhý, President of the Chamber of Commerce of the Czech Republic.

Not only the Act on the Right to Digital Services, but also some of the many judgments of the Constitutional Court, which frequently regulates the state’s digitalisation efforts within the constitutional framework, were included among this year’s five nominees.

“The voting at the Czech Bar Association unanimously confirmed the high demand of lawyers for increasing the efficiency of the state’s functioning by way of digital technology. With the increasing pressure on efficient performance of the legal profession, the need for attorneys-at-law to resolve client matters in a time and cost-effective way is also more intense,” added Robert Němec, Vice-President of the Czech Bar Association.

“All of the three winning regulations or acts aim to make life and work easier for entrepreneurs and citizens. They fulfil the principle that the state is here for people rather than the other way round. And that the performance of state powers must be predictable,” concluded Jiří Nesrovnal from the Chamber of Tax Advisors of the Czech Republic.

Final results of the Act of the Year 2019:

More information on this year’s and previous editions of the survey is available at  www.zakonroku.cz.