Committed Bribery In The Czech Republic?

The Czech Government recently submitted a proposal to amend the Czech Penal Code (the "PC") and the Code of Criminal Procedure (the "CCP") in respect of, among others^[1], the non-prosecution of bribery under certain circumstances. The proposal^[2] was adopted within a month and will come into effect on 1 July 2016 (the "Amendment").

This article summarises the purpose and scope of the part of the Amendment pertaining to the non-prosecution of bribery.

Purpose

The purpose of the Amendment is to strengthen the motivation for offenders to report bribery^[3].

Under the current legislation, active^[4] and passive corruption^[5] are both punishable, so offenders are not motivated to report such behaviour to law enforcement authorities. The Amendment should make up for the fact that the PC so far lacks any special effective remorse provision (in Czech: účinná lítost) for bribery and indirect corruption^[6]. Offenders naturally have little reason to report their