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"approve" international treaties whose implementation requires regional legislation. The councils are also invested with the nominal power of appointment over regional judiciaries. Subordinate to the councils are a number of commissions which coordinate legislative activity in such fields of health, education, and transportation.

Although the Czech National Council was an innovation of the federalization plan, the Slovak National Council had been established as early as 1960, in deference to Slovak pressure for "autonomy." Before 1969, its legislative powers were limited to minor administrative matters, and all initiatives were subject to veto by the National Assembly.

As implemented by the 1969 federalization scheme, the National Councils are bodies whose members are popularly elected for 4-year terms. The Czech National Council has 200 representatives, the Slovak, 150. Deputies may not be prosecuted for criminal or political activity without the consent of their council. Each council elects its own presidium, which performs the functions of the main body when it is not in session. The presidiums are empowered to appoint and remove national republic government officials, including the national premiers.

c. Local government

Local administration in Czechoslovakia is conducted by a system of national committees which exist on the regional (kraj), district (okres), and community levels. The committees are constitutionally responsible, under the jurisdiction of the respective national governments, for the regulation of economic, cultural, educational, security, and civic services. Corresponding to the country's administrative breakdown, there are 11 national committees with regional status, 118 with district status, and about 11,000 local committees.

Members of the national committees, are popularly elected for 4-year terms in the same manner and at the same time as members of both of the National Councils and of the Federal Assembly. Each committee is run by an executive council, which varies in size depending on the area of jurisdiction. The function of the committee system is to closely supervise the activities of the individual citizen and to act as an administrative transmission belt from the national ministerial level to the local level. The committees are charged with implementing governmental directives in virtually all social and economic spheres, including local transportation, sanitation, public order, community services, cultural activities, and the administration of local judicial organizations. Autonomous administration of economic enterprises of local importance is an important function of the committees. The national committees to a degree serve as ombudsmen for citizens' complaints, although this role varies widely among the localities and depends on the character of the officials involved. The Communists have claimed that the committees have contributed to Czechoslovakia's "democratic" system by directly involving the population in executive functions on the local level. Although the committees are constitutionally "accountable to the people," their elections and programs are closely managed and supervised by the central government. Moreover, it is the party organization at each level of local government that is the real locus of power.

Prior to federalization, the national committees were directly subordinate to the central government. They are now responsible to the respective national governments. As part of its economic decentralization program, the Dubcek regime declared the regional national committees "superfluous" and in June 1968 abolished the Slovak regional committees. Abolition of the Czech regional committees was precluded by the invasion. Reversing this process, the Husak regime in December 1970 reverted to the "three-tier" (kraj, okres, communal) national committee system throughout the country by reinstituting the three Slovak regional committees.

3. Judicial system

The constitution of 1960 amply demonstrates the Communists' basic philosophy with respect to the role of the judiciary by charging it first with the protection of the "socialist state"—its social order—and then with the rights and "true interests" of the citizen. Loyalty to the political system is thus given priority over the protection of basic human rights. In addition, the constitution restricts the independence of the lower courts which had existed in the prewar democracy and were theoretically preserved in the 1948 constitution. The traditional three systems of courts—criminal, civil, and military—were through the early 1950's integrated into a single system. The Supreme Court, itself under firm central party control, came to supervise closely the work of the four lower courts: regional, district, local people's courts, and military. The local people's courts, which in 1961 succeeded the once ubiquitous "comrade" courts, and whose function was to relieve higher courts of cases involving work discipline and minor breaches of "socialist order," were abolished in 1970. The structure and subordination of the court system is shown in Figure 4.

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