Chapter 5: Czech Republic

PETR KUZVART * JIRI DUSIK * PAVLA JINDROVA

LEGAL AND INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK AND PRACTICES FOR PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

General

Constitutional Rights

Implementation of International Legal Instruments

Implementation of International Nonbinding Instruments: Sofia Guidelines

Individual administrators at the MoE gave NGOs (e.g. Society for Sustainable Living) the opportunity to give comments on the general goals of the draft. The NGOs were invited relatively late in the process, however, and there was no continuation of the process. NGOs did not gain access to the document, so it is difficult to say how much impact their comments had.

With regards to the evaluation of the implementation of the Sofia Guidelines, an independent NGO report evaluated access to environmental information (e.g. Cincera, Partnership 1997). Some ministerial administrators also participated in the preparation of this report.

A complex NGO evaluation has been prepared on "Access to Environmental Information in the Czech Republic - National Report of Czech NGOs," and it assesses the implementation of the Sofia Guidelines in the Czech Republic. The report, edited by Jan Cincera with the contribution of numerous Czech experts, was prepared in January 1998 as part of the Environmental Partnership's "Community Right to Know" program, supported by PHARE, WWF International and WWF Norway.

Powers and Responsibilities of Local/Regional Governments Concerning Environment

Access to Environmental Information

Legislation on Access to Information/ Environmental Information

There are no specific laws about general access to information or about access to environmental information; however, acts have been proposed in both areas. The two proposals are now being discussed by the government and in the parliament. Two drafts were prepared - one by the government and one by an opposition political party. Both drafts were similar and both fulfilled the 90/313 EEC Directive. The two drafts were combined, and the final version is currently being discussed by parliament.

The consideration of the drafts coincides with preparation of a law on state secrets and with the plans to prepare a general law on access to information. Although there is limited correlation among these acts, the lack of coordination in their preparation slows down the adoption of the law on access to environmental information. In connection with the actual preparation of a draft law on access to environmental information, the standards established by the 1990 Directive of the Council of the European Community are being considered for the field of environment.

The right to receive information is included in specific laws to varying extents. In the regulations for the protection of individual elements of the environment and against individual types of activity, this right is defined at a fluctuating level. A satisfactory example is the regulation contained in Article 72 of the Act on the Protection of Nature and the Landscape (No. 114/1992 Coll.). This act requires the appropriate bodies to keep a comprehensive record of information about issues related to nature conservation and landscape protection and to make the information accessible to anyone upon request. The act also provides the possibility of obtaining copies of documents for the price of the material costs. Although Act 114/1992 Coll. relates only to some environmental information (pollution data, for example, cannot be accessed), it functions rather well. The main problem is that the law applies only to authorities responsible for nature conservation and not to the more important pollution permitting offices.

In the case of legal regulation of waste management and the protection of water purity, rules for providing information are brief and inconsistent. In the case of waste, local authority plans for waste management are generally open to the public, with the exception that specific individual data are withheld when their release would "threaten commercial secrets." In the case of water protection, water management documentation can be inspected only if the person requesting such information can prove "authorized interest." The procedure and conditions for proving authorized interest are not clearly defined; as a result, public officials can use their own judgment to decide whether or not to disclose information. In practice, although information is available for dam managers, NGOs often have difficulty proving their own right to access. For example, the regional authority has refused several times to provide Greenpeace information about water management permission for a large chemical factory (Synthesia Pardubice).

The newly adopted Nuclear Act (No. 18/1997 Coll.) obliges the Nuclear Safety State Authority to give the public adequate information about its activities. The word "adequate" is open to interpretation. In practice, only inconsequential information is released, such as plans for green spaces inside the nuclear power plant facilities. During that particular permitting procedure, NGOs were invited to participate and the nuclear plant's management used it as a public relations opportunity. On the other hand, when substantial changes were being prepared which influenced the safety of the power plant, the information was kept secret.

Passive Provision of Information

Existing Czech law does not contain any legal definition of environmental information. However, the draft law on access to information provides the following definition:

"Information on the environment is any information in written, pictorial or sound form, or stored as digitized information, which refers to the state and development of the environment, and the reasons for and consequences of this state."

It also includes information on proposed activities that may lead to changes in the state of the environment and information on measures taken by the authorities responsible for environmental protection or other persons in preventing or repairing damage to the environment.

Information on the environment includes, but is not limited to information on the state of water, atmosphere, soil, live organisms and ecosystems, information on the influence of activities on the environment, on substances, sound and radiation emitted into the environment, and on the consequences of these emissions.

In addition, information on the environment includes information on the exploitation of natural resources and its consequences for the environment; likewise, it includes all underlying data used for the evaluation of the causes and consequences of the state of the environment and the influence of this state on society and living organisms.

Information about the environment also includes information in written materials about administrative proceedings related to the environment, environmental impact assessment, petitions and complaints related to environment and their resolutions and also information in written form about specially protected areas.

Conditions for Obtaining the Information

There are no specific conditions or rules for obtaining information in general. Private bodies usually are not obliged to provide information to the public. State authorities are obliged to provide information according to the individual laws. There is no uniform access to information act, so each decision process has its own standard for access to information (for details, see the section on public participation). The best legal construction is in Act No. 114/1992 Coll. on the Protection of Nature and the Landscape. Other laws are less thorough. In many cases (e.g. waste and water management), the public must prove "authorized interest" in order to receive information. State bodies can refuse access to information for general reasons as well.

The procedure for responding to public complaints and requests is regulated by the Decree on Treatment of Public Notices, which was passed in the early 1950s. This decree gives a 30-day time limit for responses. Although this procedure is still binding for all civil servants, it does not provide adequate "access to justice" because the response does not have to address the issues mentioned in the complaint, nor is there any way to complain about a late response by the public official. A new legal framework for public complaints would be warmly welcomed. The draft law on access to information calls for the time limit to be 15 to 30 days, and in some cases up to 60 days. The draft law also contains the following provisions:

• The information must be provided without undue delay within 30 days of the date when the application was delivered to the body, unless specific circumstances require the extension of this term, and in any case no longer than twice this period (60 days). Such circumstances and the prolongation of the term must be made known to the applicant before the expiration of the 30-day period.

• In the case of an incomprehensible, too generally formulated or otherwise inadequate application, the organ of state administration or its subordinate legal entity will send within 15 days a request to the applicant to clarify the application. The applicant must clarify the application without undue delay within 15 days.

• The applicant has the right to request the form and method of providing information. "Every person has the right to inspect documents and take extracts or notes from them. Every person likewise has the right - if it is practically possible - to obtain copies of documents, and this for no more than the actual cost of the procedure."

Under current law, as well as in the draft law on access to environmental information, the possibilities for refusal are still relatively broad. State authority has broad power to decide whether the person that asks for information has an authorized interest.

Information also may be refused if:

• it was submitted to the state organ or its subordinate legal entity by a person who was not obliged to submit it under the law and who has not given his or her prior written consent to the release of such information;

• the provision of information would increase the risk of damage or threat to the environment;

• the provision of such information would require special inquiry, calculations or processing that would diminish the capacity of the organ of the state administration or its subordinated legal person to fulfill its other tasks;

• the information was provided during investigation in criminal cases;

• the application is incomprehensible, too generally formulated or otherwise inadequate and the applicant has not clarified the application after being asked to do so;

• the application is formulated evidently in a provocative or obstructive way and the applicant already has requested the piece of information.

Informal Guidelines for Agencies and the Public

As there are not any general guidelines for public authorities on how to provide information, general guidelines for the public on how to request information are missing as well. The procedure of responding to public complaints is regulated loosely by the Decree on Treatment of Public Notices.

Specific Institutions/Officials to Provide Information

There is no official or bureau responsible specifically for providing environmental information to the public on the national or local level. The MoE has an information department whose activities were severely suppressed from 1992 to 1996. The department recently has begun dealing with the public. In other cases, public authorities provide information to the public in addition to their other duties. With regard to parliamentary information, a regularly published magazine is available to the public which contains detailed information about what happened in Parliament, including the voting

If an Authority Does Not Possess the Information

If the authority which is responsible for providing information does not possess the information requested, it is not obliged to seek that information nor to provide contacts within the agency that does possess the information. In some cases an agency is obliged to forward a request within the agency to the relevant department (i.e. cases in which the procedure is governed by an administrative act, which excludes EIA procedure). In practice, officials usually provide information about possible sources of requested information if they know where the information could be obtained.

According to the draft Law on Access to Information, public authorities whenever possible would be obliged to advise an applicant of where an application should be made (Article 4).

The new draft on Access to Environmental Information, which is currently being prepared, includes time limits; specific rules regarding the right to make copies of documents, the form of a request and the form of the answer; rights to appeal when the information is not accessible; and even a right to go to court. There are also limitations listed, such as state secrecy, commercial secrecy and protection of personal data. The draft of the new law on access to information states that secret information "will be refused with the exception of cases where the public interest in accessibility of information markedly outweighs any interest in its concealment" (Article 8).

Costs of Obtaining Information

There is currently no law regulating costs of information. The draft law states that information as a rule is provided free of charge. A price agreed upon by a state body and the applicant could be charged for information requested for commercial aims or if the provision of information would require special inquiry, calculations or processing. Information about these facts must be given to the applicant without undue delay within 15 days. If there is no agreement about the price, the requested information will be not provided.

An act can set down administrative charges for providing of information. Charges may not, however, be so high as to seriously limit access of public to environmental information.

Active Provision of Information

Active dissemination of information is not a legal obligation of state authorities. There is an obligation for private bodies (i.e. enterprises) to actively spread information about air pollution in case of emergency (Clean Air Act, No. 301/1991 Coll.). There is no obligation to provide state of the environment reporting.

However, all state organs dealing with the protection of the atmosphere - from the MoE to local municipalities - are obliged to actively notify the public about the smog situation and advise the public on ways to protect their health. This notification is regularly used in every major city in the Czech Republic (notably Usti nad Labem, Chomutov, Prague, Ostrava, Teplice, etc.). In the case of provision of information on the state of the atmosphere and on smog levels, the right to information is clearly defined and the information must be prompt and full (Clean Air Act, No. 301/1991 Coll. with amendment and the Act on the State Administration of Air Protection, No. 389/1991 Coll.).

Public notification about expected deterioration of the environment is guaranteed by the Act on Environmental Impact Assessment (No. 244/1992 Coll.). This applies in relation to the influence of construction works, investment activities and plans (Annex 4 of Act No. 244/1992). The public authority is obliged to notify the public about the process, and thus the public can learn about the potential impact. In connection with estimates of the influence of manufactured products, public access to information and participation in decisionmaking is wholly missing in practice, although it is requested by the same Act (No. 244/1992).

Under the Nuclear Safety Act, the manager of the source of pollution is required to inform the public directly in case of emergency.

According to the Waste Management Act, regional authorities must provide information about waste production. In practice, they usually provide only aggregate information about an entire region and do not separately report about individual sources of waste.

Finally, the Air Pollution Act requires managers of large and medium-sized sources of pollution to provide information to public and regional authorities, who are required to provide this information to the public, in this case separately for individual producers. Regional authorities often provide the information actively in the form of measuring stations that show immediate concentrations of different chemicals at the spot.

Methods of Dissemination

Although there is currently no legal obligation for it, since 1990 the Ministry of the Environment in the Czech Republic has been issuing an information yearbook called "The Environment in the Czech Republic." This generally accessible publication contains a systematically arranged collection of information on the causes of change in the environment, the state and development of environmental elements, the consequences of environmental changes for the human population and on development in the field of instruments of ecological policy (legislative bodies, economic instruments, education, international cooperation). The book is comprehensive, well-arranged and easy to obtain. The Ministry of the Environment also has prepared an annual "Report on the Environment of the Czech Republic." This report has been discussed in the Czech government and it has been available to the public. The draft law on access to information makes the MoE responsible for preparing these reports.

At the local level, information usually is disseminated by posting the information on official notice boards, by preparing press releases, by sending out mass mailings or by having the information printed in the local newspaper. Although this practice exists for dissemination of other types of information, these methods are seldom used for distributing environmental information

Electronic Means of Dissemination

Although it is possible to find some Czech environmental information on the Internet (usually websites of environmental institutions, NGOs, etc.), there is no legal obligation for it.

Nevertheless, since 1996 parliament has maintained a website that provides all texts used in parliament, such as draft laws. With regard to the Ministry of Environment, texts of selected international agreements, legal texts, structures of the ministry, and texts of the yearbooks on the state of the environment can be found at its website.

Nongovernmental Information Centers

There are a few nongovernmental information centers in the Czech Republic. These centers usually specialize in a specific type of information. For example, one such center in Ceske Budejovice focuses on spreading information about energy and anti-nuclear topics.

Mechanisms to Ensure Flow of Information from the Private Sector

Public Participation

Public Control of Decisionmaking (Direct Democracy)

The constitution (Constitutional Act No. 1/1993 Coll.) touches on the issue of referendum only once (Article 2, Paragraph 2) and stipulates that "the Constitutional law can determine when the people exercise state power directly." Such Constitutional law has not yet been adopted; therefore, the Czech Constitution does not provide Czech citizens with a practical right to a national referendum.

However, the Act on Municipalities (No. 376/1990 Coll., with later amendments) has provisions about local referenda, especially in cases when a municipality is divided into several new ones and vice versa. There is also a special Local Elections and Referendum Act (No. 298/1992 Coll.). According to this act, a local referendum can be initiated by the proposal of every citizen (voter) who was supported by signatures of a specified number (percent) of voters from the municipality. But this binding referendum cannot be exercised in cases in which:

• the municipal council has already made a decision on the issue at stake; or
• the issue is being dealt with under the administrative procedure.

As evident from the above limitations (which are quite restrictive and irrational when judged in the sense of modern use of local referendum), the local referendum cannot be used in the overwhelming majority of environmental cases. In fact, no formal referendum has yet been used in the Czech Republic to decide an environmental case. Most of the public participation takes place through the EIA procedure or through administrative decisionmaking.

Right to Initiative

The same Constitutional provision that alludes to referenda (Constitutional Act No. 1/1993 Coll., Article 2, Paragraph 2) provides the possibility for a law allowing citizen initiatives. So far, no such law has been enacted and Czech citizens do not have the right to initiate lawmaking.

In practice, there is no right to initiative or other possibility for direct citizen control of lawmaking in the Czech Republic. The Constitution (Constitutional Act No. 1/1993 Coll.) mentions the issue only once (Article 2, Paragraph 2) and stipulates that "the Constitutional law can determine when the people exercise state power directly." Such Constitutional law has not yet been adopted; therefore, the Czech Constitution also does not provide Czech citizens with a practical right of referenda nor with a right to initiative in lawmaking.

Public Shares Power to Decide

Public Participation

With regard to preparation of governmental regulations, there is no regulation that outlines the procedure. Each ministry that is mandated by law to issue regulations on specific matters does so in a closed manner. Unlike in the law-drafting procedure, there is not even informal participation of NGOs in the process of drafting the regulations. This important type of decision process has as yet totally escaped any requirement of transparency and civic participation.

Government strategies (i.e. policies, plans and programs of the Czech Government) are determined in a similarly closed process because there are no regulations mandating an open procedure. Each ministry that submits a proposed strategy informally coordinates the interministerial commenting process, which is closed to the public. It has not been a custom to involve even labor unions or other strong organized groups in this internal commenting process. The proposed strategy is then decided upon at a closed meeting of the government.

The only exception to this closed decision process is provided by the Czech EIA Act (No. 224/92 Coll.). In Article 14, the act stipulates that certain binding governmental policies in certain fields (such as energy, transport, mining, waste management, tourism, agriculture, water management) as well as regional land-use plans, must undergo environmental assessment. This legal requirement requires the government agency that proposes one of the aforementioned policies to:

• prepare environmental assessment of the draft policy;
• submit the draft policy (and its environmental assessment) for 60 days for public review;
• submit the draft policy (and its environmental assessment) to the MoE, which must issue an opinion on the proposal within 30 days.

These formal requirements were violated repeatedly between 1992 and 1997 in the preparation of national sectoral policies . In particular, official transportation policies have been criticized as illegal because they were enacted without proper environmental assessment and subsequent public participation.

Since late 1997, the Czech MoE has been more adamant about ensuring EIA. The ministry requested environmental assessments to be done for the proposed Energy Policy up to 2010 and the proposed Policy for Development of Road Infrastructure up to 2010. This request from the MoE provided a breaking point for the development of strategic environmental assessment in the Czech Republic. The expert teams responsible for environmental assessment of both policies are aware of the precedent value of such assessments; therefore, they are making sure to include substantial public participation in the process. Both teams have voluntarily undertaken thorough public assessment hearings and established advisory committees with NGO representation to advise on the final scope of the strategic environmental assessment. Although it is still unclear what the outcome of these strategic environmental assessments will be (both assessments are to be ready in July 1998), it is already clear that the chosen procedure serves as a pilot also in the wider Eastern European context.

Preparation of Regional and Local Land-use Plans

Preparation and adoption of regional and local land-use plans is regulated by the Act on Land-use Planning and the Building Code (No. 50/1976 Coll.), and also the Building Act. This procedure covers an important field, and its tradition is a long and elaborate one in the country. The main purpose of this act is to create, through effective land-use planning and building permit procedures, the "prerequisites for safeguarding the permanent harmony of all natural, civilization and cultural values in an area with particular reference to the care of the environment and the protection of its principal components - soil, water and air" (Article 1, Paragraph 2 of the Act).

Several crucial points concerning public participation can be found in the land-use planning procedure. The Building Act distinguishes several types of planning documents, of which the most significant are the local land-use plans. The local plans determine the functions and land use of the area (i.e. the city, town or village). The plans provide the basic principles of organization and define procedures for the land's use and the conditions for its development. Some local plans are also provided for major areas, districts or even regions. Local planning affects proposed development activity and the rights of individuals, including the possibility of applying for the right of compulsory purchase.

According to the regulations, the preparation of local land-use plans must include specific public consultation procedures, including the following:

• The draft of a local plan must be exhibited for public inspection for a period of 30 days.

• Notice regarding the public inquiry into the draft local plan must be given to citizens and legal entities in a manner customary in the locality (i.e. in the press, mass media, information center, etc.).

• The citizens and legal entities have a right to submit comments on the draft of the local plan. The law distinguishes between two groups of the public. One group represents citizens (or legal entities) whose property or other rights to the land or buildings are directly affected by the provisions of the plan. These directly affected persons have the right to submit objections to the plan. The planning authority must provide these people with a written answer detailing how their objections have been met or the reasons for which they have been overruled. These people also have the right to be a party to the process leading to the issue or refusal of a planning permit. The comments on the local plan made by the second category of the public (i.e. the persons whose rights to the land or buildings are not directly affected) serves the planning authority as an indication of public opinion.

The technocratic approach to urban planning still prevails in the Czech Republic, and procedures to notify the public about upcoming environmental decisions often are used solely to persuade the people to support a decision. However, several emerging urban planning companies have undertaken thorough public information and public participation programs that go beyond the legal requirements. There are two interesting examples of this.

The first example comes from the city of Ceske Budejovice (100,000 inhabitants) is currently preparing a completely new land-use plan which will substantially alter traffic routes and the use of public spaces. Although the local council was not interested in public participation, the company responsible for drafting the land-use plan approached a variety of local NGOs that deal with environmental, social, health and other issues. Communication between the planners and NGOs resulted in a series of local workshops that discussed specific proposals. Based on the reports by the NGOs that participated in these workshops, it can be said that they felt very involved and satisfied with the level of reflection of their comments.

The second example occurred in Plzen (180,000 inhabitants), where the city executive board responded to NGO pressure to tackle traffic problems in a particular neighborhood. The board established an ad hoc citizen advisory panel that comprised three NGO representatives, three representatives of the local administration and three representatives of academic and professional organizations. The citizen group was given a mandate to prepare alternative solutions to the transport situation in the neighborhood, to carry out a thorough public information and public participation campaign, and to suggest the best alternative and corresponding changes to the local land-use plan. Although the case is not yet closed, the public participation program made the citizen group highly visible in the community. It now appears the group's recommendations to the executive city council will be properly reflected in the decision and further use of Citizen Advisory Committees is officially being recommended for other urban planning activities in the city.

Development Permitting

The same Building Act that regulates land-use planning (no. 50/1976 Coll.) also regulates development permitting procedures for all environmentally significant projects in the Czech Republic. According to the Building Act, there are two relevant procedures for obtaining development permits: the planning procedure and the building procedure.

Both procedures culminate in decisions (permit or refusal of permit) by the planning or building authority. Legal entities or citizens are parties to the procedures if their property or other rights to land or buildings - including adjacent land and buildings - could be directly affected by the decision of the planning or building authority. This definition is relatively restrictive in relation to the public. Nevertheless, the "other rights" mentioned above can be considered as applying in an extensive way. It is a question of each specific case, but there are grounds for arguing that "rights to the land or buildings" also include a right to the protection of the "environment" of land or buildings.

Although previous social deformations affected the area of building and land-use planning law, the code and the main elements of the Building Act play a relatively positive role in the process of harmonizing development projects with environmental protection requirements. The Act No. 50/1976 Coll. has also been changed since 1989. There are two new amendments: Act No. 103/1990 Coll. and Act No. 262/1992 Coll.

The Right of the Public to Participate in decisionmaking procedures according to the Environmental Impact Assessment Act No. 244/1992 Coll. is different. The way in which the public can apply the principle of participation during the EIA process is closely connected with the phases of the EIA procedure. The main stages and forms of public participation are the following:

1. A public examination of EIA documentation: Each proposed project that shall be negotiated and submitted to the EIA procedure according to the Act No 244/1992 Col. on EIA must also be augmented with special EIA documentation. This documentation must be publicly announced or exhibited for 30 days in municipalities concerned with or affected by the proposed project. Any person may make excerpts, transcripts or copies of the documentation.

2. Comments on examined documentation: During the period of examination of documentation, members of the public can submit written opinions on the documentation (public opinion).

3. Public discussions/public hearing: The next step in the EIA procedure is the preparation and presentation of an expert opinion. After an expert opinion has been made available it becomes the subject of public discussion together with the proposed project EIA documentation and public reactions to it.

4. Participation of NGOs and civic associations in the decisionmaking process: The final decision on whether a proposed project will be granted a permit is reached through an administrative (usually planning or building) procedure. A defined group of citizens can be a party to this procedure. The importance and legal relevance of such parties in an administrative procedure is explained above. The citizen groups are represented by:
   • civic associations that have been established according to the Act on Civic Associations and that have submitted their own comment (see point 2 above);
   • ad hoc civic initiative which has more than 500 persons who support the comment or opinion expressed in accordance with the rule described in point 2.

The role and meaning of the EIA procedure in the recent environmental policy of the Czech Republic is of fundamental importance. The country is confronted by so many new development opportunities. There are currently many plans for road, railway, motorway, airport and industrial plant constructions. The whole infrastructure of the country must by created or reconstructed. There is no doubt about the positive results of the EIA procedure, and this is one reason why the EIA is applied in the Czech Republic more extensively than in EU countries. The expectations of environmentalists, policymakers and the public regarding the results of EIA procedures are tremendous.

Annexes of the Act No. 244/1992 Coll. on Environmental Impact Assessment cover two categories of proposed projects to which EIA procedure is applied. The first category represents major development projects (electric power plants; nuclear power plants; long-distance gas, oil, steam, hot water and other pipelines; etc.) and is compatible with the European Community Directive on EIA. The second category covers 24 other minor types of projects. Furthermore, construction and activities or technologies which do not meet the limit values according to both annexes can still be the subject of assessment in protected areas. It is another extensive widening of EIA procedure because almost a third of the Czech Republic is covered by various types of water or nature protected areas.

When a proposed project affects the interests of nature conservation, the Act on Nature Conservation and Landscape Protection (No. 114/1992 Coll.) becomes relevant. The Nature Conservation Act is the only modern, comprehensive and effective Czech law that guarantees not only public access to environmental information but also public participation on a nearly Western European level. The law provides the following rules and principles:

• The protection of nature according to this act is carried out with the direct participation of citizens through their interest groups.

• Under certain formal conditions, environmental and nature protection groups (NGOs) have the right to be a party to procedures in which the rights and interests of nature protection may be affected (e.g. by planning or building permission). The right to be a party to an administrative procedure which can result in the issue of a permission represents an effective way for environmental organizations specializing in nature conservation activities to advocate and defend their interests. The formal conditions under which NGOs may be a party to the administrative procedure can be a problem for some of them, though. These conditions include time limits and definitions of local competency affecting the possibility of participation on the part of NGOs.

• An environmental NGO that wants to be a party to an administrative procedure has the right of access to information on any issue falling into its area of interest. The administrative authority concerned is obliged, upon the demand of the NGO, to inform it in advance about all proposed projects which could affect its nature protection or landscape protection interests.

• Pursuant to the Nature Conservation Act, municipalities have the right to advance their opinion on the establishment of protected parts of nature within their district and to obtain all necessary explanation and information from the state nature protection authorities. Municipalities also have the right to be a party in an administrative procedure within their territorial district if the interest of nature and landscape protection may be affected.

Finally, the State Environmental Fund (SEF) is a major supporter of environmental projects in the Czech Republic. However, this public institution has not established any procedure that would allow the public to obtain information about its planned decisions nor how to take part in them. Indeed, this closed nature of the decisionmaking by the SEF has led to criticism that the agency allocates its resources in a political, rather than practical, manner.

Adequate Notification of the Public

This obstacle was successfully overcome in the case of the Rajcherov park (see box 1). Using the 3P process, NGOs that learned about the issue began their own information campaign instead of relying on public officials to spread the information about the issue and about possibilities for the public to participate in the decisionmaking process. This NGO participation has helped the public in a number of different cases.

The Nature Conservation and Landscape Protection Act (No. 114/1992 Coll.) establishes an important rule of direct notification: civic associations that deal with nature conservation can request to be informed about all administrative procedures that affect nature conservation, and the state authorities must notify the associations at the beginning of any such administrative procedures. Then, if an association indicates within eight days that it is interested in participating in the administrative procedure, the group automatically becomes a party to it.

Openness of Parliamentary Committees

Sessions of Parliament are open to the public to observe. In order to participate in the sessions, individuals or groups must be invited by a member of parliament (MP).

Parliamentary committee sessions are open only to invited experts. In practice, NGO activists often take part in sessions of Parliamentary committees, and sometimes they also are allowed to speak. For example, the Society for Sustainable Living participated in the preparation of the Building Code (1997-98), although their comments were not accepted in most cases. NGOs also participated to a large extent in preparing the Access to Environmental Information Law. Almost half the NGO comments were accepted. In the preparation of this act, both sides were trying to prepare a good law and were open to meaningful comments.

Mechanisms to Influence Decisionmaking - Lobby Mechanisms

Capacity Building

Access to Justice

General Rights and Sources of Law

More important is the "administrative judiciary" (Section 244 et. al.). All parties of an administrative proceeding have standing if their rights were harmed by an administrative authority. Such parties must file a petition in court within two months after the final administrative decision was made. Administrative judiciary is often used in environmental cases and environmentalists have had several successes during the past year. In addition to these small victories, there were a few environmental success stories in the past year.

In one case, environmental NGOs, municipalities and land owners successfully sent a highway construction proposal back to the initial planning stage. The case started near Plzen in 1994, when the EIA viewpoint was issued and the permitting process started. Several NGOs attacked the permission for the project because of the inadequate EIA process. In August 1997, the court ruled in favor of the NGOs and ordered the authority to start the permitting process again. The court stated that the "final recommended alternative differed so much from the alternatives originally assessed that it seems the final proposed alternative itself needs its own EIA procedure."

Other successful cases include an NGO's dispute with the building authority over access to information (the NGO was partly successful in July 1997) and the case in Tman, not far from Prague, in which civic associations and two municipalities sued over a decision to allow the Kralovedvorske Cement factory to be built.

Administrative Standing

Standing in Action Against Government Agencies

Standing in Actions Against Polluters

Remedies and Enforcement

Injunctive Relief

Enforcement of Judgements

In practice the procedure is long and difficult. Usually the first appeal organization supports the original decision. Then there is the possibility to continue and appeal to an administrative court, which is more independent and further removed, and therefore less influenced by personal relations. It is much more likely for an appeal to be successful at this level.

Court Expenses/Litigation Expenses

Legal Assistance

Public Interest Environmental Lawyers

Commercial Lawyers

Ombudsman