By: Marie Mandíková, Martina Šumavská
April 29, 2025 6 min read
On 23 April 2025, the Government approved an amendment to Government Decree No. 590/2006 Coll., establishing the scope and extent of other important personal obstacles to work. The new regulation is intended primarily to reflect the current legislation contained in the Labour Code and to remove interpretative ambiguities that have arisen since the adoption of the original regulation. The amendment also aims to ensure that the regulation reflects the changes brought about by Act No 123/2024 Coll., which equalises the rights of partners with those of spouses.
Below is an overview of the key changes introduced by the amendment.
The amendment extends the right to obstacles to work, which previously applied only to spouses, to partners, who have entered into a partnership. Obstacles to work for the purposes of entering into marriage or partnership (previously known as wedding), death and accompaniment will newly also apply to registered partners.
In addition, for the obstacle of entering into marriage or partnership, it is now explicitly stated, for which day the employee is entitled to wage or salary compensation. This clarifies the existing legislation, which stipulated that an employee is entitled to two days off work, and to reimbursement of wages for one of them. However, it was not entirely clear, which of the two days was to be compensated. In practice, this ambiguity has caused interpretation problems, for example for employees with irregular shift schedules. The regulation now specifically provides that the employee is entitled to compensation for the day, on which the wedding ceremony takes place. If the employee takes leave only on one day, he/she will be entitled to compensation for that day.
The amendment changes the method of indicating the amount of leave from work, which will now be expressed in days instead of half-days for each week of the notice period. Furthermore, the length of leave is differentiated according to the specific reason, for which the employment relationship was terminated.
If the employment relationship is terminated on the basis of a notice given by the employer or the conclusion of an agreement on termination of employment for reasons under Section 52 (a) to (e) of the Labour Code, the employee will be entitled to a leave from work of up to 4 days to find a new job. The employee will also be entitled to reimbursement of salary or wage during the period of this leave.
In the event of termination of employment by the employer or conclusion of an agreement on termination of employment for the reasons set out in Section 52(f) to (h) of the Labour Code, the employee will be entitled to take a maximum of 2 days off work, for which he/she will not be entitled to reimbursement of salary or wage.
In addition, employees will now be able to take unpaid leave from work to use the consultancy services of the Labour Office for one to two days.
The amendment also extends the right to additional leave for employees in cases of death of a spouse, partner, companies, child, grandchild, parent, grandparent or sibling of the employee, up to 5 days. However, the employee shall not be entitled to reimbursement of salary or wage during the period of such leave.
The obstacle consisting in not being able to travel to work will now include not only situations, where the employee is unable to get to work due to weather conditions, but also due to natural disasters and other emergencies. This will eliminate problems of interpretation in situations that cannot be strictly classified as weather conditions but nevertheless constitute an objective obstacle to transport to the place of work.
The leave to accompany a family member to a medical facility is now explicitly extended to the return journey. This interpretation is already logical in relation to the current wording of the original regulation, as it is hard to imagine that an employee would have the right to accompany, for example, his grandmother to a doctor’s appointment, but would no longer be able to accompany her back home. However, the legal effects of the Regulation are now certain, thus increasing the legal certainty of the addressees.
The amendment to the Government Regulation brings significant changes that meet the current needs of employees and at the same time strengthen legal certainty and equality in employment relations. However, while these are undoubtedly welcome changes from the perspective of employees, which aim to give them more space to cope with challenging life situations, it is important to be aware of the potential negative impacts on employers – especially economic ones. The amendment to the Regulation will probably enter into force at the same time as the flexible amendment of the Labour Code, i.e. on 1 June 2025. We therefore recommend that you do not delay and reflect the changes in the relevant employment documentation and internal regulations as soon as possible. If you are interested, please do not hesitate to contact us and we will be happy to help you prepare for the new legislation and its implementation in the current situations.
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