English Translation

A number of responsibilities were imposed on the Labour Offices to approve restrictions on employment, as well as the collective redundancies of employees in enterprises. Officially, this ingence of the Protectorate Administration was justified in the working sphere by the care of permanent employment. Intensity of the Protectorate administration into the field of working relations, which began in 1940, has spread over the following years to practically all working conditions. Typical for the occupation regulations on forced labour was the incontrollability and practical unreviewableness of the decision of the employment office. These authorities decided whether to grant approval to negotiate or untied employment according to public interest considerations (the importance of the enterprise and production, virtually other business activities for the public, the regulation of labour and labour forces, etc.).The concept of public interest was vague and flexible enough for the occupying administration to allow a completely free field for decision-making. The case-law was based on the view that the courts were bound by a decision of the Labour Office and that the approval of the Office was needed to break up the employment relationship. (315) The Court was not entitled, according to the interpretation of the case, to examine the decisions of the employment offices in a territorial manner, to be bound by the opinion of the Employment Office on whether or not it was necessary to give the consent. In particular, the Court of First Instance could not examine whether or not the consent had been given by law and could not deal with this issue in a prejudicial way. This could not be done even if the court was convinced that the decision of the Labour Office was inappropriate or unfair. (316) The Court had only to assess the formalities of the decision by the Labour Bureau and procedural questions. Thus, the decision of the employment office was practically irrefutable by judicial means. As regards the mandatory work orders, the legal helplessness imposed on the Labour Office was even greater, as until Government Regulation No.46/1941 Coll., which makes certain measures on labour management from 23 January (see below), there was no rule on proceedings before these authorities and the parties were not given the opportunity to defend themselves by legal means. The Labour Offices did not belong to the type of so-called political offices and therefore they were not covered by the Government Decree No.8/1928 Coll. on Administrative Procedure and the caselaw did not allow an analogy.