Speech of the Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek at the 79th Žofín Forum 2008 Delivered on 20.5.2008

Good morning, welcome to the Žofín Island. I will try to briefly open today's discussion. I should say that I have often been speaking about the topic of the e-Government recently. It will not do me any harm; as people say: repetition of mother of wisdom. Nevertheless, I would like to interpret my speech rather differently. I will not speak about means, technologies or about the hardware of electronic reforms. The more I will deal with objectives and consequences, with software, I would say. Other speakers will talking about priorities, projects and preconditions, those 3 "Ps" of e-Justice as it is the title of today's Žofín Forum. I would rather concentrate myself to the motto, which is in the subtitle of today's meeting: "A way to worthy relations of people with a modern state." This is what we want to achieve through our reforms. When I was preparing for today's speech, I had a thick portfolio of materials including government intentions in the sphere of the e-Government, both the approved and the prepared ones. The number of small letters "e" made a good impression. There are many projects with small initial letter "e" in various spheres; there are tens of them, perhaps too many of them. I will not repeat them. One, because it would take a long time, second, a citizen might be rather confused. We are not interested in technology or the individual project of ministries; our objective is not to stagger the public by number of professional terms. Our objective is much comprehensible, perhaps simpler than those piles of paper containing descriptions of the individual paperwork and legislative tools. We want a functional and citizen-friendly public administration, fast and fair justice, health care which provides patients with all necessary information and treat them as if they were clients. Do not let us be interested in projects; let us be interested in their results, instead. Technologies should serve to citizens, not to tyrannize them. We are not doing reforms for officials; so that they would have more power and information, better computers, so that we would add one more protective wall to all those bureaucratic barriers, this time an electronic one. We do not want to poison the Internet by the bureaucratic mentality, to transfer paper office in the form of an electronic juggernaut. The electronization of the public administration must significantly enlarge the space for citizens, not to contract it. It would be nonsensical. Therefore, we put an accent on several basic principles in the assessment of the e-Government.

First: we are fighting against ministerial egoism. I must say that it is a much greater problem than I expected before my appointment to the government. In the framework of the Smart Administration project which was passed by the meeting of the government last week, we will support only those projects from the EU funds which are linked to the other authorities, which bring synergies and which really make life of people easier. It is not a question of number of projects with a small initial letter "e", it is a question of quality and real assets. Second, together with the e-Government we want to reduce paperwork, to reduce bureaucracy because the barrier of officials will remain even after the implementation of the electronic form. I should say that it is not prospering quite well. Bureaucracy is far more resistant than I expected. Leap reduction of paperwork and number of civil servant is only ahead of us. Third: paperwork which will remain must have different form, more modern philosophy. It should be based on principles of the Internet, not on principles of bureaucracy. Otherwise, we would create just something like an electronic official board – a static system which will be as modern as the Austro-Hungarian bureaucracy, just face-lifted, or rather transformed into the electronic form. Fourth, last but not least: we should avoid creating new barriers and new inequalities through the electronization , this time between those who control the Internet and those for whom this change is coming late. They must be given a chance to a friendly access to the public administration, or – the original way of communication must be preserved for them. Officials will have more time for it thanks to the electronization.

We made a progress in the creation of the communication structure of the public administration, intercommunication of the individual authorities and registers and issues connecting with legislation. The backbone of this activity is the cooperation of the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Justice, which will present results of their work today. Therefore I will leave the details to the Minister Pospíšil, and I will mention just few more general issues. Also the justice has an objective to become one of five most successful countries of the European Union, as far as electronization of state paperwork is concerned. It will be demanding, but it is feasible. I was in Estonia recently, which managed to transform this small new country to a leader of this sphere within the entire Community. In our country we have been constantly speaking about the information society, but only little was done, in fact. In this respect I regard the fact that we invested thirty billion crowns to the ICT rather as a failure than a success. In Estonia the electronization was accompanied by general liberalization reforms. This is the reason why only this government managed to push the e-Government forward and thus the e-Justice project is linked to other reforms and to the reform of the justice. It has a connection with increasing responsibility of judges and court managements, and with enhancing the effectiveness and speed of justice; speed of its work.

I should say that if Minister Pospíšil did not prepare the entire reform of his ministry, the electronization of the justice would be useless, and he would hardly get money for that from the government. We should know why and what paperwork to transform into the electronic form, after all. It is not possible to leave everything as it is, to buy computers and software and to copy that obsolete and out of date system in the electronic form. Electronic judicial files, compulsory payment orders, registers, judicial registers, which will be available through the CzechPoint – all that would not operate if the change of the form would not accompanied by the continuous change and by modernization of the content. Even the basic Act on the e-Government would be of no earthly use if, based on this act, documents would be just transformed into computers. The sphere where the change of the content will not become evident is the electronic collection of laws. But only the fact of existence of an authorized electronic version of the legislation will help citizens. A purchase of the collection in a paper form would be a burden of the budget and storage rooms, and it would be difficult to maintain ones knowledge on it. Nevertheless, I believe that we will manage to do more with that unnecessary legislation than to hide it in terabyte hard disks. Electronization of the justice brings natural pressure to higher professionalism and higher quality of work of judges, as it expose them to lager supervision and thus also criticism of the public. The reform of the justice will help judges to get rid of unnecessary bureaucracy in exchange of bearing greater responsibility for their work.

Necessity of interconnection with other authorities, which I have already mentioned, applies to courts, as well; in particular interconnection with the Police, Prison Service, probation and mediation service and such like. The necessity of communication rules between advocates and the public administration is necessary. An isolated closed system would not bring required effect. What those changes and those small letters "e" will bring us? The Ministry of Justice defined its targets, which are to be achieved through the electronization. As I have already said it primarily concerns enhancing of effectiveness of courts. With this principal target, other targets are connected, as follows:

 Improvement of the access to courts

 Decreasing of total proceedings costs

 Higher transparency of decision-making processes

 Higher quality of the information service for courts

 Higher quality of the information service for parties

 Possibility of introduction of new, effective of proceedings

 Enhancement of security of files and their content

These are good resolutions. The can promise the Minister of Justice that I will check observance of those resolutions carefully. With regard to the fact that I introduced an on-line system of the assessment of the individual projects long time ago, I have perfect knowledge on work of the ministers. I believe that the entire public administration, including justice will become transparent for all the citizens. Just transparency and higher opportunities to control activities of bureaucrats I regard as the greatest breakthrough, as greatest contribution of the e-Government. It is the same important for the sphere of public administration as democracy for politics. People may exchange government every four year. But bureaucracy is everlasting. I hope that it is everlasting just for the present. Now, officials and judges will get under a microscope and pressure of the public, under the same pressure to which politicians are exposed.

Well, that was positive news in the conclusion. Thank you for your attention.