All Czech women will be able to have their male surname entered officially. The Senate approved it in the amendment to the Act on Registries. Senators also supported the introduction of ID cards with chips with fingerprints. The standards will now be signed by the president.
Only foreigners, Czech citizens with permanent residence abroad or women whose husbands are foreigners now have the opportunity to apply for the official indication of surnames without the suffix. Czech citizens who have a nationality other than Czech have the same opportunity not to change their surname. At the suggestion of former Minister of Justice Helena Válková (YES), the Chamber of Deputies repealed these conditions.
Critics of the proposal called the change a sticker. Senator Michael Canov (SLK) stated that the proposal is gender unbalanced, as it does not allow men to choose a surname in the female form. It cannot happen that “Miloš Vystrčilová” is the head of the Senate, which, according to the senator, is “obviously unfair”.
The Vice-President of the Senate and Czech teacher Jiří Růžička from the Starostů Club pointed out that surnames in the feminine form have their informational value. While it is clear from the sentence “Horníková zdraví Vystrčilová” who is greeted, from the sentence “Horníková zdraví Vystrčil” it will no longer be obvious, Růžička said.
She justified the change in the war by the fact that there is a growing interest of women to choose a non-deviated surname, which the current legislation prevents and creates an unequal position. For example, a Czech Republic permanently living in the territory of Slovakia may have the surname entered in the register in the masculine form, while a Czech Republic with a permanent residence in the Czech territory cannot do so.
Citizens with prints already this year
The set of amendments to the new Act on Identity Cards approved by the Senate contains amendments to two dozen legal regulations. People will probably already receive ID cards with chips with their fingerprints this year.
The standard will enter into force on 2 August in accordance with a regulation of the European Parliament. According to him, the ID card will have to include a machine-readable part so that the documents meet the minimum security standards as set by the International Civil Aviation Organization.
According to the model, people will also be able to keep the newly devalued ID card. When picking up a new citizen, they will not have to prove their identity with another card.
For people over 15 years of age, ID cards will have the same validity as before, ie ten years. Children under the age of six, who can now obtain an identity card valid for two years, will be able to obtain a five-year identity card. This is now only possible for children from six to 15 years of age. Passes issued to people over 70 will be valid for 35 years.
Children under the age of six and people for whom fingerprinting is physically impossible will be exempted from the obligation to provide fingerprints. Children under the age of 12 will also be able to be exempted.
The law is to abolish the issuance of ID cards without machine-readable data with a monthly validity. According to the law, some data, such as an academic degree or birth number, will no longer be entered in the identity card. According to the proposal of the Minister of the Interior Jan Hamáček (ČSSD), this should be entered in the ID cards by the end of 2023.
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