Deputies vote to speed up pandemic law amendment vote in lower-house

The Chamber of Deputies voted on Wednesday morning to discuss the government proposed amendment to the country's pandemic law in a so-called "rapid vote", with 80 deputies voting in favour of the motion and 55 against it.

The debate on the government's proposed changes carried on overnight due to a filibuster by Tomio Okamura’s Freedom and Direct Democracy. Around 6 am on Wednesday the acting chair of the lower house, Jan Skopeček, barred the party’s MP Oldřich Černý from continuing after he had spoken for 90 minutes.

Deputy lower house speaker Jan Bartošek said that other chairs would take a similar approach to Freedom and Direct Democracy deputies if they continued to talk at inordinate length.

The proposed amendment would broaden the government’s ability to enforce restrictions. The coalition claims it would help avoid the need to call a state of emergency. However, opposition politicians and some members of the public criticise what they see as an unnecessary extension of executive powers.