MPs move to remove huge amount of outmoded legislation

Czech MPs have backed in the first reading a bill that would do away with over 10,000 laws, regulations and decrees that are formally in place but are no longer used. The minister of the interior, Vít Rakušan, said that this move would lead to more transparency in the country’s legal system.

The amendment will next go before the lower house’s Constitutional and Legal Committee.

Most of the laws are now obsolete but are still on the statute books. The remainder were cancelled under general decrees in the past but continue to appear in the legal system.

Examples of laws to be struck off include one from 1919 doing away with compulsory celibacy for female teachers and another relating to the fourth Communist five-year plan in 1966.