The Czech Republic is a unitary parliamentary republic, in which the president is the head of state and the prime minister is the head of government. Executive power is exercised by the Government of the Czech Republic, which reports to the Chamber of Deputies. The legislature is exercised by the Parliament. The Czech Parliament is bicameral: the upper house of the Parliament is the Senate, and the lower house is the Chamber of Deputies. The Senate consists of 81 members who are elected for six years. The Chamber of Deputies consists of 200 members who are elected for four years. The judiciary system is topped by the trio of the Constitutional Court, Supreme Court and Supreme Administrative Court.
The prime minister of the Czech Republic is the head of the government of the Czech Republic. The prime minister is the de facto leader of the executive branch, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers.
The president of the Czech Republic, officially the President of the Republic, is the head of state of the Czech Republic and the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic.
The Constitution of the Czech Republic is the supreme law of the Czech Republic. The current constitution was adopted by the Czech National Council on 16 December 1992. It entered into force on 1 January 1993, replacing the 1960 Constitution of Czechoslovakia and the constitutional act No. 143/1968 Col., when Czechoslovakia gave way to the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic in a peaceful dissolution.
All elections in the Czech Republic are based on the principle of universal suffrage. Any adult citizen who is at least 18 years old can vote, except those who have been stripped of their legal capacities by a court, usually on the basis of mental illness. Elected representatives are elected directly by the citizens without any intermediaries. Election laws are not part of the constitution, but – unlike regular laws – they cannot be changed without the consensus of both houses of the Parliament. The Czech Republic uses a two-round plurality voting system for the presidential and Senate elections and an open party-list proportional representation system for all other elections. The proportional representation system uses the D'Hondt method for allocating seats.
The Czech Republic has offered registered partnerships for same-sex couples since 1 July 2006. Registered partnerships grant several of the rights of marriage, including inheritance, the right to declare a same-sex partner as next of kin, hospital visitation rights, jail and prison visitation rights, spousal privilege, and alimony rights, but do not allow joint adoption, widow's pension, or joint property rights. The registered partnership law was passed in March 2006 and went into effect on 1 July 2006. The country also grants unregistered cohabitation status to "persons living in a common household" that gives couples inheritance and succession rights in housing.
The Chamber of Deputies, officially the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, is the lower house of the Parliament of the Czech Republic. The chamber has 200 seats and deputies are elected for four-year terms using the party-list proportional representation system with the D'Hondt method. Since 2002, there are 14 constituencies, matching the Czech regions. A Cabinet is answerable to the Chamber of Deputies and the Prime Minister stays in office only as long as they retain the support of a majority of its members. The quorum is set by law to one third (67) of elected deputies. Any changes to the constitutional laws must be approved by at least 60 percent of the Chamber of Deputies. The seat of the Chamber of Deputies is the Thun Palace in Malá Strana, Prague.
The Senate, literally "Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic", is the upper house of the Parliament of the Czech Republic. The seat of the Senate is Wallenstein Palace in Prague.
The Security Information Service (BIS), is the primary domestic national intelligence agency of the Czech Republic. It is responsible for collecting, analyzing, reporting and disseminating intelligence on threats to Czech Republic's national security, and conducting operations, covert and overt, both domestically and abroad. It also reports to and advises the Government of the Czech Republic on national security issues and situations that threaten the security of the nation.
The Government of the Czech Republic exercises executive power in the Czech Republic. The members of the government are the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, the deputy prime minister and other ministers. It has its legal basis in the Constitution of the Czech Republic.
State decorations of the Czech Republic recognize outstanding acts of service to the Czech Republic. They are awarded by the President of the Czech Republic, usually, but not necessarily, on the recommendation of the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate or the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. They may also be promulgated solely on the president's authority. They come in two varieties: orders being the higher honor and medals the lower.
A constitutional act, with respect to the laws of the Czech Republic, is an act which can change the Constitution of the Czech Republic, provisions of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Basic Freedoms, the conditions under which the citizenry may exercise state power directly, or the exterior or interior frontiers of the territory of the Czech Republic.
The President of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, sometimes also referred to as Speaker or Chairman / Chairwoman, is an elected presiding member of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic. Since 10 November 2021, the president has been Markéta Pekarová Adamová of TOP09.
Lubomír Zaorálek is a Czech politician, who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs under Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka from 2014 to 2017, and Minister of Culture under Prime Minister Andrej Babiš from 2019 to 2021. He was a Member of the Chamber of Deputies (MP) from 1996 to 2021, and unsuccessfully ran for the premiership in the 2017 election but his Social Democratic Party received only 7% of the vote.
Městys, translated as "market town", is a status conferred on certain municipalities in the Czech Republic, lying in terms of size and importance higher than that of simple obec (municipality), but lower than that of město.
Bohuslav Sobotka is a Czech politician and lawyer who served as the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic from January 2014 to December 2017 and Leader of the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) from 2010 until his resignation in June 2017. He was Member of the Chamber of Deputies (MP) from 1996 to 2018. Sobotka also served as minister of Finance from 2002 to 2006.
Jan Hamáček is a Czech politician who was leader of the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) from February 2018 until October 2021, and minister of the Interior from June 2018 to December 2021. He also served as the President of the Chamber of Deputies from 2013 to 2017, and was acting minister of Foreign Affairs from June to October 2018 and from 12 to 21 April 2021. Hamáček was a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 2006 to 2021.
Radek Vondráček is a Czech lawyer and politician who has served as President of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic since November 2017. He previously served as First Deputy President of the Chamber of Deputies from January 2017 to October 2017. Vondráček was first elected Member of the Chamber of Deputies (MP) in 2013 and again re-elected at the October 2017 election. Vondráček is member of the movement ANO 2011 which is by far the strongest political party in the Czech Republic since the parliamentary election of 21 October 2017.
Jan Lipavský is a Czech politician and IT manager, who has served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic since December 2021, in the Cabinet of Petr Fiala. A member of the Czech Pirate Party, he was previously a member of the Chamber of Deputies from October 2017 to October 2021.
