Czech Laws in Electronic Form: Development of the Information System Will Take Nine Instead of Three Years, and Its Cost Will Nearly Double
PRESS RELEASE ON AUDIT NO 24/04 – 28 April 2025
The Supreme Audit Office (SAO) examined the Ministry of the Interior’s (MoI) plan to develop an information system (eSeL) for the electronic drafting and publication of legal regulations in the Czech Republic over the course of three years – from 2017 to 2020. The auditors found that the MoI extended the development of the system by six years, meaning it is expected to be fully functional and in use only by 2026. In total, the development of eSeL will span nine years. At the same time, the Ministry has almost doubled the originally planned expenditure, which was set at CZK 482 million. The system was intended to consist of two components: the electronic “Collection of Laws and International Treaties” (e-Sbírka (e-Collection)) and electronic drafting of legal regulations (e-Legislativa (e-Legislation)). Currently, however, only the e-Collection is operational. The auditors reviewed CZK 725 million spent by the MoI on the implementation of the system until 30 June 2024.
The eSeL system was to be developed primarily with the co-financing from EU funds, which were intended to cover 81% of the total costs. The remaining portion was to be financed from the state budget. “The Ministry of the Interior failed in managing the eSeL project. It extended its implementation by six years and almost doubled the project’s budget to CZK 903 million. Due to changes in the project, the share of EU funds dropped to 42%, while the share covered by the state budget increased from the originally planned 19% to 58%. All additional costs, which accumulated through repeated requests for changes, are being covered from the state budget,” summarized SAO Member Stanislav Koucký, who led the audit.
By December 2024, the MoI had submitted a total of 22 requests for changes to the project, repeatedly asking for deadline extensions and budget increases. The Ministry for Regional Development, acting as the managing authority for EU funds, approved all these requests.
The MoI launched the e-Collection into full operation in January 2024, four years behind schedule. Until then, the “Collection of Laws” and “Collection of International Treaties” were published in printed form. The second component of the system (e-Legislation, through which legal regulations are to be created in digital form) is scheduled for completion in mid-January 2026.
Although the e-Collection is now functional, it is not without issues. As the auditors discovered, for a certain period, it displays amended laws in their original – now outdated – version. Users are not alerted to this, and therefore cannot be certain about the current validity or correctness of the displayed legal texts.
This problem is caused by the absence of the e-Legislation component, which makes it necessary to digitise and subsequently verify new laws through external suppliers. As a result, there are significant time delays between the promulgation of new legal regulations and their publication in the e-Collection, as well as rising system costs. In 2023 alone, the MoI spent CZK 23.5 million on necessary digitisation and verification – CZK 13.5 million more than it had paid for publishing the printed “Collection of Laws.” The Ministry will continue to incur these costs until the launch of e-Legislation, i.e. at least until mid-January 2026. Due to delays in the entire project, the MoI also had to contract additional services, leading to a total of CZK 108.5 million in inefficient spending by the end of June 2024.
According to the auditors, the MoI spent CZK 581 million unlawfully, as it entered into major amendments to the eSeL contract in breach of the Public Procurement Act. These were changes that could have enabled the participation of other suppliers or influenced the outcome of the original tender process. Such changes are prohibited by law.
Communication Department
Supreme Audit Office