Under the bill, the parliament would have only made decisions on the arrest of its members in the future and would not have been able to decide on whether they would be criminally prosecuted. At present, there is the rule that if the parliament does not release its members for Czech communist leader receives same award as Castro-press ...
Role of Czech PM in intelligence leak investigated-server ... criminal prosecution, it is stopped once forever. Of the 150 deputies present, 125 voted for the rejection of the bill. Jicinsky explained his proposal by pointing to the government's disagreement with the constitutional bill drafted by senators. The Chamber rejected the bill for the second time as last year it returned its original wording to the Senate for re-drafting. The senators included a provision in the original bill under which not only senators and deputies would enjoy immunity as regards their speeches and votes in parliament, but also regional and municipal councillors. This provision was widely criticised by leftist lawmakers.
According to CSSD deputy Jeronym Tejc, "it is an interesting idea but a silly one." "The senators' bill is seemingly reasonable and it seems to seek narrowing the immunity, but it really only seems so," Tejc said. The Senate seeks to submit such proposals to the Chamber of Deputies that would be unacceptable to it and thus to rid itself of any responsibility, he said. Jicinsky again recommended to submit a bill from 2006 according to which lawmakers would only enjoy immunity while performing their mandate. However, the senators rejected the proposal, pointing out that given the length of the mandate (four years for deputies and two, four and six years for senators) it would be nonsensical to launch criminal prosecution after such a long time. Under the senators' bill, the "petty offence immunity" of lawmakers would be maintained, while the police would be allowed to detain a lawmaker when a crime is committed or immediately after it. In such a case, a lawmaker can only be taken into custody with the consent of the relevant parliamentary house. The decision on the continued custody would be made by the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate at their sessions.
(Ceske Noviny)
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