In this Newsletter No. 1/2016 we provide an overview of the most significant changes in Czech legislation that approach in 2016. We have concentrated our attention on the following areas of law:
- Civil and Commercial law
- Labour law
- Tax legislation
- Other
Civil Code
Despite becoming effective only as of 1st January 2014, the Ministry of Justice has already been working hard on the novelization of the New Civil Code (Act No. 89/2012 Coll., the “NCC”).
Originally the so-called big novelization of NCC was introduced to the professional public in September 2014. This novelization affected more than ¼ of the provisions of the NCC, while it even modified some of the fundamental principles of the civil law, laid down in Sections 1 – 14 of the NCC. This novelization also aimed at the provisions of NCC concerning heirship and family law, which proved to be quite problematic and non-practical. Its aim was also to provide for complex novelization of consumer law. The estimated effective date of this novelization was 1st January 2016. However, the proposal did not find the required support among legal professionals and therefore the Ministry of Justice abandoned this novelization.
As a following step, the Ministry of Justice prepared a so-called technical novelization of the NCC, which modifies only a small number of statutory provisions and aims to clear up the most problematic issues. This novelization was approved by the Government and has been submitted to Parliament (Parliamentary Issue No. 642/0) to undergo the enacting process.
