Constitutional Court in Brno – illustrative photo.
Brno – The Constitutional Court (ÚS) will announce today how it decided on the proposal to abolish part of the Civil Procedure Code. It obliges banks to maintain protected accounts free of charge for people in receivership. A group of 17 senators, represented by Tomáš Jirsa (ODS), believes that the obligation is in conflict with the constitutional order.
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The disputed sentence in the law states that “a financial institution has no right to payment for the establishment and maintenance of a protected account”. The protected account is intended to serve people in foreclosure with attached payment accounts. It can be used to manage a so-called protected income.
The sentence about free account management entered the law as part of the amendments. According to the senators, it favors people in foreclosure over other people in difficult social situations, such as old-age pensioners with minimal pensions and the unemployed. In addition, it does not distinguish between debtors in different situations, for example, between the wife of a debt-ridden gambler and people who caused culpable damages or owe the costs of criminal proceedings.
The burden associated with keeping an account is transferred to financial institutions, according to the law, according to the senators disproportionately interferes with their rights, which is said to create space for further similar interventions in the future.
“Assuming that the contested provision were found to be constitutionally compliant, the way would be open to any essentially arbitrary interference with the rights of third parties persons, for example by the carrier having to provide a discount on fares, an energy supplier on the price of electricity and gas, an insurance company on liability or home insurance, a private school operator on school fees, an operator on payment for the internet or mobile phone, etc..” it was in the senatorial proposal.
