News

The Deputy Chairman of the Czech Communist Party, Jiri Dolejs, has said he and two other Communists MPs would likely vote to override President Vaclav Klaus's veto on the introduction of a European Arrest Warrant. The vote in the lower house of Parliament is scheduled for Friday. Most Communist deputies argue that adopting the European Arrest Warrant should be preceded the adoption of an amendment to the Charter of Basic Human Rights and Freedoms, which would allow the extradition of Czech citizens abroad. Without the amendment, both the Communist and the main opposition Civic Democrats, of which President Klaus was chairman, consider the bill to be unconstitutional. The European Arrest warrant only relates to serious crime such as terrorism, trafficking in drugs, people or weapons, murder, rape, and engaging in paedophilia.

Deputies are also due to vote on Friday on bills relating to reforming the educational system reform and the abolition of compulsory national military service.

The Finance Ministry has announced it has tightened spending in next year's state budget draft to lower the projected deficit for 2005 by roughly one billion crowns, or around 35 million euros. The ministry made the announcement ahead of this Tuesday's government meeting on the state budget.

Czech member of European Parliament Jana Bobosikova has requested that her colleague Vladimir Zelezny apologise for his statements about her and her family made in the Czech media last week, in which he criticised her for hiring her husband as her assistant in the European Parliament and accused her of betraying her party's principles. Mrs Bobosikova has threatened to sue Mr Zelezny for slander if he fails to explain his remarks over the next seven days. The public falling-out between both Euro MPs sharply contrasts their professional relationship earlier in the year when both successfully ran for European parliament under the banner of the so-called Independents.

A court in the north Bohemian city of Usti nad Labem has ruled the municipality does not have to pay any compensation to the Cervenaks, a Romani family that was suing the city for damages allegedly suffered in 1993. For the Cervenak family the heart of the dispute was the loss of city-owned apartments that followed after family members moved to Slovakia. When family members began returning to Usti nad Labem within a matter of days, they found they were unable to return to their original homes.

Cervenak family members contended they were never properly compensated for the property they had given up, although they were later given some accommodation by the city after the president's office intervened, and received 900, 000 crowns from the Czech state in an out-of-court settlement after the family took their case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Five out of eight family members withdrew their current lawsuit in Usti nad Labem last month, leaving just three plaintiffs in Monday's ruling. The trio had been asking for compensation of 8 million crowns, or roughly 270, 000 euros.