Czech lawmakers recently passed a bill enabling the state to deny foreigners entry or freeze their assets if they have committed a serious crime or violated human rights. The legislation, which must now be passed by the Senate and signed into law by the president, is aimed at both individuals and companies.
The bill also targets terrorists or cyber criminals and authorises the foreign ministry to put identified perpetrators on the EU or Czech sanction lists.“The Czech Republic will now have a tool against all who violate human rights, support terrorism or take part in cyberattacks,” Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said in a tweet.
The bill is inspired by the so-called Magnitsky Act passed in the United States in 2012 and aimed at those suspected of having a role in the prison death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
The Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act authorizes the US president to block or revoke the visas of certain “foreign persons” (both individuals and entities) or to impose property sanctions on them. People can be sanctioned (a) if they are responsible for or acted as an agent for someone responsible for “extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights,” or (b) if they are government officials or senior associates of government officials complicit in “acts of significant corruption.”
The Czech government originally expected to pass the law by the end of 2023, but its adoption was accelerated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Magnitsky Act has inspired many countries on the need to enact legislations targeting human rights abusers worldwide. Human rights campaigners in Europe have called for Magnitsky-style laws in the past
Canada’s version of Magnitsky Law — officially called the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act — became law in October 2017. Other countries such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania( EU’s three Baltic members) all have Magnitsky provisions of their own. Britain has not passed a specific Magnitsky law, but in July 2020 Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab used a wider law to announce sanctions on 49 individuals, including the death of Magnitsky himself and that of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Australian plans for a Magnitsky bill were launched in 2018 but have since stalled.In September 2020, the EC President, Ursula von der Leyen told newsmen that she intends to create a system for such an initiative.
“The Member States are, at the moment, discussing the sanctions for those who are responsible for the violence after the elections that were neither free nor fair, and where people peacefully took to the streets.”What we’ve learned out of that, too, is that we need a mechanism to, if human rights are violated, to impose sanctions that is faster and, therefore, we will propose, as the Commission, a so-called Magnitsky Act to move all forward in this topic.” She said
