Who Controls Us
Democratic countries place a great emphasis on the control of intelligence services. The control is usually executed by means of legislative, executive and judicial power. The important part of the control is also represented by the unofficial controlling role of the mass media. These forms of external control also apply to us. In addition to this we also apply internal control systems.
The existing legislation does not stipulate the existence of a special parliamentary committee for the control of UZSI. We regard the parliamentary control of this type as essential and hence we actively participate in discussions regarding its establishment. The Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic is entitled to control our activity by standard control tools of executive power, such as, for instance, addressing questions to the members of Government, in our case addressing questions to the Minister of the Interior. Our parliamentary partners are the Committee for Defence and Security of the Chamber of Deputies and the Committee for Foreign Affairs of the Chamber of Deputies. We intend to communicate and cooperate with the competent parliamentary bodies most effectively.
The executive control of our activity results from the way of appointment of the Director of the service. He is appointed to serve as Director by the Minister of the Interior with Government consent. Thus the Director is accountable for the Office's activity to the Minister of the Interior and through him to the Government. The tasking as well as the control of our activities is done in the same way, i.e. through the Minister of the Interior. With respect to the management of state property we are controlled by the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of the Interior and the Supreme Audit Authority within their scope of powers. A certain feature of executive control can also be found in the systems by which the Government coordinates the activity of intelligence services.
Our activity can also be examined by courts, however, only in cases of justified suspicion of violation of the law. The general public is informed about our activities through media. Hence we aim at the matter-of-fact and accommodating approach.
The internal control is executed through the individual departments as well as through specialized control departments with the scope of powers in all aspects of the activity of the Office. The arrangement and organization of the internal control system, execution of control activity and the rights and duties of the controllers and the controlled are determined by special internal regulations.