The Czech Chamber of Authorized Engineers and Technicians Active in Construction rejects steps that worsen access to Czech technical standards

The Czech Republic's Confederation of Industry and Transport declared at its Assembly, held on September 29, 2014, 2015 the Year of Industry and Technical Education. The Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka publicly joined this initiative at the Assembly, promising financial participation as well. The head of the Association of Regions, Moravian-Silesian Region governor Michal Hašek, promised support for individual regions. The project had earlier received support from Minister of Education, Youth and Sports Marcel Chládek. The activities were also patronized by Minister of Industry and Trade Jan Mládek and Minister of Labour and Social Affairs Michaela Marksová-Tominová. Representatives from various ministries are already participating in the preparation of the whole project.

What form does the promised support take in practice?

By decree of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic No. 348/2014 dated December 19, 2014, which amends decree No. 486/2008 Coll., which establishes professional activities related to the assurance of issuing and proper distribution of Czech technical standards and fees for their provision, there was an adjustment to the "fees for the provision of standards," whereby the duration of access rights was reduced from 1 year to 6 months; this effectively doubled the fee. (Access rights for individual reading of ČSN and other documents were previously 1000 CZK/year, now 1000 CZK/6 months.) A similar adjustment was made to the fee for individual printing of technical standards (access rights for individual printing, previously an annual fee, now the same amount for 6 months; the item "unlimited printing" was replaced with printing up to 1000 pages inclusive).

The reason for this change was the request to increase revenue to the state budget from the sale of technical standards, which was raised by the Ministry of Finance during the preparation of the budget for 2015. This request subsequently became part of Government Resolution No. 437 dated June 16, 2014.

ČKAIT, together with other non-governmental organizations, especially the Chamber of Commerce, had been striving for several years for a change in the trade policy of the Czech Standards Institute (the organization responsible for the development, issuance, and publication of Czech technical standards until 2008) and online access to technical standards. At the same time, the Chamber promoted new provisions in the Building Act concerning public free accessibility to selected standards. Act No. 183/2006 Coll., § 196 par. 2: "If this law or another legal regulation issued for its implementation stipulates the obligation to follow a technical standard (ČSN, ČSN EN), this technical standard must be publicly accessible free of charge."

An important document that cannot be overlooked concerning the accessibility of Czech technical standards is the finding of the Constitutional Court regarding the content of decree No. 23/2008 Coll., on technical conditions for fire protection of buildings, published in the Collection of Laws under No. 241/2009 Coll. The Constitutional Court decided on May 26, 2009, on the proposal of the Public Defender of Rights JUDr. Otakar Motejl to abolish decree No. 23/2008 Coll., on technical conditions for fire protection of buildings by rejecting this proposal. In a comprehensive reasoning, it addressed not only the technical standards referred to in decree No. 23/2008 Coll. but generally the content, comprehensibility, usability, and accessibility of Czech technical standards and the manner of referencing technical standards in legal regulations.

Regarding the purpose and mission of technical standards and their connection to legal regulations, the finding of the Constitutional Court states:

"(54.) Technical standards complement an incomplete legal requirement. References to technical standards aim to specify the requirements contained in legal norms and thus protect the public interest and safety. The purpose of meeting detailed legal requirements is primarily the quality of products, protection of human health and life, workplace and technical equipment safety, fire protection, creation and protection of the environment, protection of property, and other interests. These requirements often arise from international agreements to which the Czech Republic is bound. Recently, they have particularly originated from the European Union.

(60.) The existence of technical standards and references to them in legal regulations are necessary so that the legal regulations of the Czech Republic are not unnecessarily burdened with numerous detailed legal requirements. Legal regulations cannot go into detail (methods of calculating various values, etc.) provided on many pages of standards. Legal regulations only set out basic conditions and refer to the relevant Czech technical standards, thereby informing persons qualified to propose buildings and address technical conditions for fire protection of buildings (authorized engineers and technicians) where they can find detailed solutions to the given issues."

The finding of the Constitutional Court also notes the possibility of using a different procedure than that provided by the technical standard, under conditions set by law:

"61. The provision of § 99 of the Fire Protection Act states that "the authorized engineer or technician, who has been granted authorization for fire safety of buildings (hereinafter referred to as the 'authorized person'), is authorized to use a procedure different from the procedure set by the Czech technical standard or another technical document regulating fire safety conditions when implementing the technical conditions for fire protection of buildings established by an implementing legal regulation issued under § 24 par. 3. However, when using such a procedure, the authorized person must achieve at least the same result as would be achieved according to the implementing legal regulation issued under § 24 par. 3.".

62. This provision thus takes into account cases where the designer (authorized person) comes up with a more suitable, innovative, or cheaper solution than what is specified by the standard.

The Constitutional Court expressed agreement with the proponent's stance that Czech technical standards should be publicly accessible free of charge. This is stated in the finding:

63. Regarding the proponent's objections to the lack of public and free access to Czech technical standards, the following can be stated: technical standards can be consulted during working days at the regional fire brigades (regional directorates, territorial departments) or for a fee at technical libraries in regional cities.

64. Czech technical standards can also be purchased from the Office for Technical Normalization, Metrology and State Testing, where citizens can also turn for requests for basic information. Czech technical standards can also be purchased at contact points of the Chamber of Commerce throughout the republic. Since 2009, the printed version of technical standards has been reduced in price by half. The average price of Czech technical standards is (and was even before their reduction) lower than the average in the European Union.

65. Access to all valid technical standards in electronic form is also possible via the internet, where these standards can be downloaded for a fee (for one user, the service costs 1,000 CZK for 12 months, with the option of printing at an increased price).

66. It should, however, also be noted that technical standards are not primarily intended for the ordinary consumer, although one of their tasks is to protect them, but primarily for professionals. Technical standards related to fire safety are primarily provided for authorized technicians and engineers assessing the technical conditions of fire protection (who use them in their work), which represents another opportunity for access and review. The design of buildings can only be resolved by qualified persons, as implied by the provision of § 158 of Act No. 183/2006 Coll., on Territorial Planning and Building Code (Building Act). These persons must obtain authorization for their activity according to Act No. 360/1992 Coll., on the exercise of the profession of authorized architects and the exercise of the profession of authorized engineers and technicians active in construction, as amended. The design of buildings (projecting) can be carried out as business entities, which implies that undertaking this activity incurs certain costs related to it. Among these expenses is the acquisition of technical standards.

67. It can therefore be stated that access to Czech technical standards specified in Annex No. 1 to decree No. 23/2008 Coll. is public and free of charge. The principle of public and free access to Czech technical standards mentioned in decree No. 23/2008 Coll. is not violated, as the condition of public and free access to technical standards for citizens is provided at state institutions, i.e., regional fire brigades. Therefore, there is no violation of the fundamental principle of a democratic state, i.e., equality before the law (Art. 1 of the Constitution, Art. 1 of the Charter) due to the existence of references to technical standards contained in the relevant decree.

Under the conditions described above, the Constitutional Court considered the requirement for public and free access to Czech technical standards to be fulfilled. These conditions should not be changed without serious reason. A serious reason is not the request of the Ministry of Finance to increase revenue to the state budget from the sale of technical standards.

The regional offices of the Czech Chamber of Authorized Engineers and Technicians active in construction conducted a survey on the accessibility of technical standards (in the sense of the Constitutional Court's finding) at the regional fire brigades, in the technical libraries of regional cities, or other locations within the region. At the same time, they were determining the availability of standards for public administration authorities (especially building authorities) and professional construction schools.

The survey revealed that most (but not all) regional fire brigades have arranged access and allow the public to read technical standards referred to in the decree on technical conditions for fire protection of buildings. In technical libraries of regional cities, there are also various forms of access to technical standards: online reading of standards, on-site study of printed standards, or borrowing printed standards for a small fee. The situation at building authorities, affected bodies (mandatory opinions and statements in building administrative procedures), and other public administration bodies is considered tragic, where access to standards can be estimated at about 50%. Accessibility to technical standards is ensured at the faculties of architecture of universities, at secondary vocational construction schools at a level of approximately 60 - 70%.

It is reasonable to expect that an increase in fees for access to technical standards will result in a decrease in the number of accesses: business entities and public authorities will maintain financial amounts for access to standards at the same level in their budgets and reduce the number of accesses.

Members of ČKAIT, authorized engineers and technicians, actively participate in the development, approval, and implementation of Czech technical standards, or in the adoption of European or international standards into the system of Czech technical standards, especially within technical standardization committees. Their activities are either formally financially supported by the Chamber and other non-governmental organizations in construction and business entities, but predominantly performed voluntarily. These professionals carry out this work for the benefit of other professionals in the field. For this reason, increasing the prices of the results of their work is considered immoral.

Non-governmental organizations, including the Chamber of Commerce of the Czech Republic, the Union of Entrepreneurs in Construction of the Czech Republic, and the Association of Small Enterprises and Tradesmen of the Czech Republic, argued strongly against the proposed decree changing decree No. 486/2008 Coll.: the Chamber of Commerce points out that the sale of technical standards cannot be viewed as the sale of a commodity owned by the state and as a mere source of income for the state budget. The business and professional community also invests their time, knowledge, and money into the creation of standards. From this perspective, standards are not property of the state. Furthermore, it emphasizes that, in their consequences, the proposed measures are contrary to an EU document with which the Czech Republic identified itself - "Strategic Vision for European Standards - Further Progress in Strengthening and Accelerating Sustainable Growth of the European Economy by 2020" dated June 1, 2011. The proposed measures are also contrary to Regulation EP and Council (EU) No. 1025/2012 of October 25, 2012, on European standardization.

In conclusion, we express the opinion that

• Technical standards should not be a subject of commercial enterprise.
• Public authorities and professional schools should have easy, if possible completely free, access to standards depending on their jurisdiction and specialization.
• If ÚNMZ wants to increase revenues, the Office should seek other forms of offering its services; for example, consider providing complete texts of technical standards (i.e., including the integration of adopted changes into the text of the standard), publishing commented versions of frequently used technical standards or their groups in the form of publications, organizing professional seminars on the content of individual technical standards using the knowledge and experiences of members of technical standardization committees, etc.

ČKAIT provides and wants to continue providing full cooperation in the creation, adoption, and application of Czech technical standards in construction practice. For the immediate future, it is essential to consider - from a construction perspective - especially groups of technical standards concerning

• assessing the mechanical safety and stability of existing buildings,
• designing buildings with almost zero energy consumption,
• sustainability in the design, implementation, and operation of buildings,
• designing buildings using BIM (Building Information Modelling) methodology and incorporating relevant ISO standards into the system of ČSN.

Approved by the Board of ČKAIT on May 29, 2015