Final Word from Monday, July 20, 2015
The Bill of Rights and Freedoms is an integral part of the Czech Constitution, and it's useful to review it now and again to consider whether politicians are respecting it. For example, did Interior Minister Milan Chovanec violate Art. 2 and 23 of the document by using his official position to insist on taking action against demonstrators even though the police found that no law was broken by hoisting about symbolic gallows? Is it allowable in a democratic society for an interior minister to propagate illegal police suppression? And will it also perhaps be a violation of Art. 10.3 (data protection) and 13 (secrecy of correspondence) for the state to require businesses to send their invoices to the finance ministry, when the person in charge (Andrej Babiš) is a direct competitor to many of the businesses in question and can profit as a businessman by accessing the data? Isn't the very purpose of a Bill of Rights to guard against such potential abuses by the state? Isn't its very purpose to protect against autocratic tendencies of power-hunger individuals and political parties? [Czech Republic fundamental ČSSD ANO immigration]
Glossary of difficult words
integral - essential or fundamental; necessary to make a whole complete;
to hoist something (about) - to raise or lift something up (and to carry it around in such a way);
suppression - the act of preventing the development, action or expression of (a feeling, impulse, idea, etc.).