At the last weekend of October, Parliament elections were held in the Czech Republic. Before the elections, my colleague Ales Rod explained in this article the background leading to these early elections and commented on the then not very optimistic...
December 9, 2013 11:28 pm / 3 comments
The short answer is no; it has become even worse. A few months ago I outlined some figures describing the abysmal attendance of members (deputies) of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic[1] during committee sessions...
December 7, 2013 4:28 pm / 1 comment
On September 22nd, a new parliament was elected. It has been the first parliament since the foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany without a liberal party. The FDP missed the five percent hurdle. The most likely outcome of the negotiations...
November 11, 2013 11:39 pm / no comments
We are used to the fact that our parliament is not an autonomous source of legislative power, but merely a puppet in the hands of the government. Thus, a vast majority of the government’s propositions are comfortably passed by its parliamentary...
November 5, 2013 8:21 pm / no comments
There are people who, no matter which emotions they arouse in others, become the point of reference for the contemporaries.
Tadeusz Mazowiecki was such a person.
When met personally for the first time, he seemed to be humble, withdrawn, reserved...
October 29, 2013 4:55 pm / 4 comments
The elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament[1] are fast approaching and so is the voters’ decision about who will represent them. The voters’ confidence in Czech politicians is grimly low. It is not very surprising considering...
October 1, 2013 9:46 am / 3 comments
The political instability in the Czech Republic has got another dimension. After the decay of leading governmental coalition, early parliamentary election is coming. It is repeating again and again, one could add…
Early parliamentary...
September 23, 2013 10:02 pm / 1 comment
Today, on the 18th of July, Alexei Navalny – a lawyer, dissentient, entrepreneur, blogger and social activist – was sentenced to five years for alleged scheming with a firm from Kirov Oblast.
For the ones who do not know who Alexei Navalny...
August 5, 2013 11:23 am / no comments
2013 is the European Year of citizens. The purpose of this initiative is to highlight the concept of EU citizenship and to promote the knowledge about the rights of our fellow citizens. It would even be fair to rename the year European Year...
August 2, 2013 12:45 pm / no comments
Measuring the performance of politicians is no easy task. Given the general belief that politicians should be selfless individuals in service of the public, some might argue that such a pursuit is unnecessary. However, even if we embraced this...
August 1, 2013 12:40 pm / no comments