English Translation

Innovations in the administrative organization of the Protectorate Railways Bohemia and Moravia of the Upper Reich Railway Council Dr. jur O.Conrad in Prague The organisation of the state railway administration in the Protectory of Bohemia and Mähren had so far its main pillars in legal bases, which still date from the Austrian period, namely in the *Organisational Statute for the State Railway Administration" of 19.1.1896 and in the "Rules of Procedure for the National Railway Directorates" of 20.5.1897, amended several times by various subsequent individual decrees. These rules provided for three stages for the implementation of the railway administration: the railway ministry as a central authority, the state railway directorates at the intermediate level for the management of the operation (in the broad sense) within certain districts and lower services for the direct local exercise of the service. In the Ministry, the tasks of supervising the railways and the management of the state railways were united in this organisation. It had already been clear at the Austrian time that such a close link between the tasks of the State Authority and the commercial management of the state railways as an economic operation would have to result in disadvantages for the railway administration, because the narrowing by the rigid rules of the Government of State for a mobile management of railways, which was elastically following the economic cycle, was hindered. At the time, however, approaches to eliminating this maladministration were unsuccessful. In the course of the many attempts at autonomy in the European railway sector, the Czech Republic finally took the decisive step towards the separation of the state supervision and management of the railways with the Law of 18 December 1922 "concerning the regulation of the management of public enterprises, institutions and bodies which do not have to fulfil primarily administrative tasks" (collection of laws and regulations No. 404). The Government Decree of 25.9.1924 (Collection No. 206) implementing this Act contains the legal bases still in force today.