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Cabinet resolution as a legislative act: terminological chaos sui generis

Publication at Faculty of Law |
2021

Abstract

The state of emergency declared during the coronavirus epidemic has brought a new type of legislative act to the Czech law. A cabinet resolution published in the Collection of laws became a source of law.

This way of adopting crisis measures can be seen as undesirable and is caused by inadequate legislation joined with incorrect government practice. It originates from a lack of understanding of the two phases of adopting legal acts, where the internal decision of the lawmaker is only a prerequisite for publishing the act in the official gazette with the appropriate designation (which is different from the designation of the preceding internal decision).

The cabinet resolution itself cannot be legally binding, because it represents only an expression of will of a collegial body aiming at publishing an act designated in accordance with law and the constitution. To support this conclusion and its importance, detrimental effects of disregarding it are explained.