Who actually runs the Czech Republic? When the government refuses to take responsibility for the departments

There is a moment when a citizen stops asking whether the authority has made the right decision and begins to ask a much more serious question: Who in this country is actually responsible for the performance of state administration?

At first glance, the answer seems simple. According to the Constitution, the government is the supreme body of executive power. Ministers are members of the government, the Prime Minister coordinates its activities, and individual departments carry out state administration on behalf of the state. This is how parliamentary democracy works.

But practice increasingly shows a completely different picture.

As soon as a citizen draws attention to the possible systemic misconduct of a ministry, a perfectly executed game of institutional shifting of responsibility begins. The ministry says it did the right thing. Another department of the Ministry will confirm the correctness of the procedure of the first department. The Government Office will announce that the Ministry cannot review. The Ombudsman will recommend other means of protection. The Executor Chamber will refer to the Ministry of Justice. And after months of correspondence, the citizen finds himself exactly where he started.

Nobody judged anything.

Nobody checked anything.

No one is responsible for anything.

This is not just one office's problem. This is the problem of the philosophy of the exercise of public power.

The biggest weakness of the current Czech public administration is often not the mistake itself. Errors are a natural part of any system. The real problem is when the system starts to create an environment in which it is no longer able to recognize, let alone correct, errors. Each institution suffices to confirm the correctness of the procedure of the previous institution, and the whole apparatus gradually closes in on itself.

This is where the formalism begins.

The formalist approach is extremely convenient. There is no need to establish the facts. No need to analyze the contradictions. It is not necessary to respond to individual arguments. It is enough to write a few sentences about non-jurisdiction, attach a link to another authority and close the case.

Administratively, everything is fine.

In terms of content, nothing happened at all.

At the same time, the citizen often does not ask the Government Office to cancel the ministry's decision or replace its powers. It points to something much more fundamental – the possible systemic failure of control mechanisms within the state. He expects that the government will want to know whether its ministries carry out the delegated powers in a quality, transparent and legal manner.

Instead, he learns that the Government Office is not the superior administrative body of the ministries.

This is legally correct information.

But at the same time, it represents an answer to a question that no one asked.

This is a classic example of replacing substantive argumentation with procedural formulation. Instead of settling the essence of the initiative, there is a debate about what the Office of the Government is allegedly unable to do. But the citizen did not ask what he could not do. He asked who would bear responsibility for possible systemic deficiencies in the performance of public administration.

There is no answer to this question.

And it is here that the biggest paradox of the Czech state administration arises.

The government is the supreme body of executive power. Politically, it answers to the Chamber of Deputies. Individual ministers are members of the government. Nevertheless, when warning about possible systemic problems within the ministries, the impression is created as if the government bears no responsibility for the functioning of its own departments.

If the Ministry allegedly cannot review itself, the Office of the Government cannot review the Ministry, the Executive Chamber cannot review the Ministry of Justice and other institutions refer the citizen back to the Ministry, a closed circle is created in which responsibility dissolves between individual offices.

Everyone has some competence.

No one is responsible for the whole.

It is this situation that represents one of the biggest threats to citizens' trust in the state. Trust is not created by the fact that the authorities never fail. Trust is created when they are able to openly admit, objectively explain and correct their mistakes.

Instead, we increasingly encounter responses that resemble an administrative defense mechanism rather than the actual performance of public administration. The citizen receives several paragraphs of polite wording, but not a single concrete answer to his arguments. The contradictions remain unexplained. Factual claims without verification. Legal objections without settlement.

It's comfortable.

It's fast.

It is process safe.

But it is also a path that gradually weakens the very meaning of public control.

A democratic state is not a set of buildings, stamps and file marks. A democratic state relies on citizens' trust that public power will be exercised honestly, transparently and with a willingness to listen to justified criticism.

If citizens' submissions become only record items and authorities' responses become a catalog of procedural excuses, something much more valuable than the speed of processing begins to disappear. The belief that the state serves the citizens is disappearing.

And here is the question that should be asked by every government regardless of its political composition.

It is not a matter of whether the Government Office can overrule the decision of the Ministry. It really can't.

It is about something more substantial.

Does the government even want to know whether its ministries perform state administration well and whether their control mechanisms really work?

If the answer is positive, then citizens' systemic initiatives must not end with a single sentence about incompetence. It must be an impetus to verify whether the state is really fulfilling its mission.

Because the rule of law does not begin with paragraphs.

It starts with the willingness of public authorities to take responsibility.

And the rule of law does not end when an official makes a mistake.

It ends when the whole system starts to look like no one is responsible for her.

Source: .

1. Constitutional Act No. 1/1993 Coll., Constitution of the Czech Republic.Collection of laws of the Czech Republic. Available from:https://www.zakonyprolidi.cz/cs/1993-1

2. Act No. 500/2004 Coll., Administrative Code.Collection of laws of the Czech Republic. Available from:https://www.zakonyprolidi.cz/cs/2004-500

3. Act No. 2/1969 Coll., on the establishment of ministries and other central bodies of the state administration of the Czech Republic (Competence Act).Collection of laws of the Czech Republic. Available from:https://www.zakonyprolidi.cz/cs/1969-2

4. Supreme Administrative Court. 2018.Resolution of the extended senate of the Supreme Administrative Court of 10 July 2018, No. 9 As 79/2016-41.Available from the database of decisions of the Supreme Administrative Court:https://www.nssoud.cz

5. Constitutional Court. 2003.The finding of the Constitutional Court no. stamp I. ÚS 403/03.Available from the database of decisions of the Constitutional Court:https://nalus.usoud.cz