Czech President Miloš Zeman signs bills on quarantine voting, distance learning into law

The new election legislation will enable those in mandatory quarantine to vote from a car at special points or use a system of special commissions that will come to their homes with a portable ballot box. It also deals with special polling points at health and social care facilities under quarantine.

The opportunity for special voting will only apply to those who would be in quarantine or isolation imposed on them by a public health authority or a doctor.

The Chamber of Deputies added a provision to the bill, explicitly stating that going to elections would not mean the quarantine violation. The Senate passed the bill without changes.

Those under preventive protective measures, on return from abroad for example, will see their right to vote unrestricted and will be able to cast their ballots at the polling station in their home election ward.

The new school amendment makes distance learning mandatory for students as part of their compulsory school attendance. It does not define any form of distance learning, but says schools should adapt it to the conditions and possibilities of each of their students.

It reacts to the COVID-19 epidemic, due to which schools were closed from mid-March. They started partly opening in May and June, when many pupils preferred to remain on distance learning until the end of the school year on June 30. The new school year starts on September 1.

Under the legislation, schools are obliged to launch distance learning during crises, in accordance with the emergency law, if schools are closed by order of the Health Ministry or a public health authority. It should not apply only to the coronavirus epidemic, but to various crises that might occur, such as natural disasters.