This short video explains everything you may have ever wanted to know about the Reconstruction of the State, but were afraid to ask.
The Czech Republic suffers from some of the worst corruption in the world. In order to fight it dozens of activists and experts got together to push for nine anticorruption bills aimed at increasing transparency while stopping conflicts of interest and misuse of public funds. The centerpiece of their efforts? A public pledge to support the anticorruption measures, which they put before every member of parliament.
At first, progress was painfully slow. But during snap elections in 2013, hundreds of volunteers took our cause directly to the candidates. Ultimately, 165 out of 200 members of parliament promised to support the reforms.
But the initial victory was short-lived. Eventually, parliament passed only one of the nine bills. The rest succumbed to an onslaught of excuses, delays, lobbyists, and political infighting. As the tide turned against reform, members of parliament started to demonize the pledge itself, calling us blackmailers, extremists, and radicals. The media eventually moved on to other issues.
Despite all these obstacles, we managed to get five of the proposed reforms passed by working with a small group of politicians across the party lines who actively advocated for the bills. Our initiative also inspired other coalitions to lead similar campaigns both at home and in neighboring countries. It’s a step in the right direction for a country that desperately needs to change the way it does business.
Yesterday, on 5 November 2018, a lawsuit against the Ministry of the Environment (MoE) on liability for health damages and death of her husband from lung cancer was filed with the District Court in Prague 10. The plaintiff seeks damages for lung cancer, which she has managed to cure, but her husband has succumbed to the illness in October. The cause of the disease is seen in the long-term excessive concentration of air pollutants at their place of residence in Ostrava-Radvanice and in the fact that the MoE failed to provide effective measures to decrease the pollution to legal limit values.
The Brussels office of the public interest law firm Frank Bold is currently recruiting a Research Intern to start full-time in January 2017 for a period of four to six months.
Where has the European Commission gone beyond and where has it fallen short?
