Yes, Act No. 54/2019 Coll. in § 10 (1) allows such a possibility. 

The Act on Municipal Establishment first of all obliges municipalities to fill the post of chief inspector. At the same time, we would like to point out that Act No 54/2019 Coll. imposes an obligation on the employer under Section 10(5) to receive and verify each report within 90 days of its receipt, pursuant to Section 1. The time limit may be extended by a further 30 days, stating the reasons for the extension to the whistleblower (e.g. in the case of sick leave). The Act imposes this obligation on the employer, who is obliged under section 10(1) (a public authority employing at least 5 employees) to designate a responsible person to carry out the employer's tasks in receiving and verifying the report. In the municipality, this role is performed by the chief inspector. If he or she is unable to perform the function, the employer is responsible for receiving and verifying the report. 

Act No.54/2019 Coll. does not exclude such a procedure, however, the implementation of only its own directive without the simultaneous determination of its own responsible person would complicate the situation in the exercise of rights and obligations of the responsible person of the founder, who would in principle have to proceed differently for each such subordinate organization, which could negatively affect the quality of the performance of tasks, rights and obligations under Act No. At the same time, it is also necessary to consider the practical aspect of such a procedure, since the smaller the organisation, the greater the risk of bias/conflict of interests of the responsible person when reviewing notifications. However, budget organisations with 50 or more employees may agree with the founder that they prefer their own internal whistleblowing system, even if the founder has its own guidelines for them. 

If the employer does not have the data for the delivery of documents in relation to the whistleblower and is therefore not in a position to fulfil the obligation to acknowledge receipt of the report pursuant to Section 10(6) of the Whistleblower Protection Act, the objective prerequisites for the creation of such an obligation are not fulfilled.

However, in the case of receipt of an anonymous report, the obligation to keep a proper record of the report received, to properly examine the report and to take corrective action if certain unlawful conduct is detected remains.

Thus, an anonymous report received by post without the data of the whistleblower being available must be duly registered and the impossibility of delivery of the acknowledgement must be indicated in the records.

However, if the anonymous submission is received by email, the employer is obliged to acknowledge receipt of the report to the email address in question.

In this particular case, the sovereign wealth fund should have its own internal system for reviewing notifications, including a responsible person. 

The report will be registered in the register and examined as a whole by the responsible person. This does not preclude that part of it will also be examined as a complaint. Upon receipt of a report, the person responsible shall enter such a report in the register of reports. Consequently, should the content of the report indicate that only part of the report is a report, only the relevant part of the report shall be examined by the person responsible and the remaining parts of the report shall be dealt with in the appropriate manner (i.e. under the Complaints Act). At the same time, it is important to record this fact in the register of reports - the result of the examination of the report, which should indicate that part of the report has been assessed as a complaint and has therefore been dealt with as a complaint (including the number under which it is registered as a complaint). 

Therefore, in view of the extension of the circle of whistleblowers according to the amendment by Act No 189/2023 Coll., it is necessary to fulfil the obligation to publish the designation of the responsible person and the methods of submitting reports in a concise, comprehensible, clearly formulated and easily accessible form. It is up to the employer to decide how to comply with this obligation, but we recommend choosing a method that is not on an individual basis, such as inserting a clause on this information in a specific cooperation agreement, but rather publicly and with an impact on a wide range of potential addressees, for example by publishing it on the employer's website.

Yes, this is possible for the responsible person, while maintaining the time limits for verification for the individual reports listed in the common output. In principle, every report has to be checked - i.e. every possible anti-social activity has to be dealt with. However, it is possible to cover them in one final output for reasons of efficiency. 

In connection with the amendment to Section 10 of Act No. 54/2019 Coll. effective as of 1 September 2023, we would like to point out that according to the aforementioned wording, it is possible to delegate some of the employer's tasks to external responsible persons within the scope of receiving and confirming reports.

Employers with fewer than 250 employees who are not public authorities may also delegate the verification of reports to external responsible persons, but the employer retains responsibility for the verification of the reports also by a responsible person within his organisation (internal person).

We also draw your attention to Article 8(6) of DIRECTIVE (EU) 2019/1937 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 23 October 2019 on the protection of persons who report infringements of Union law:

"Legal entities in the private sector with between 50 and 249 employees can share resources in terms of receiving reports and any investigations to be carried out. This is without prejudice to the obligations imposed on such entities by this Directive to maintain confidentiality, to provide feedback and to address reported breaches."

As regards the contractual relationship between the employer and the external responsible person to whom some of the employer's tasks are delegated, it is necessary that the mutual contractual obligation guarantees the functionality of the external responsible person so that the internal reporting system is fully functioning, both in terms of the requirements for the performance of the external person's activities and in terms of the requirements for the functioning of the internal system for the verification of reports within the meaning of the provision of Section 10(1) of the Act on the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. 9 of the Whistleblower Protection Act (e.g. confidentiality and secrecy, processing of personal data, avoidance of conflicts of interest, ensuring the professional qualifications of the responsible person, time limits for the verification of the report, etc.). This functionality of the external responsible person includes contractual obligations of the employer itself in the performance of the activities of the external responsible person pursuant to the provisions of Sections 5 to 8 of the Whistleblower Protection Act (e.g. providing full cooperation, taking proposed measures after the investigation, informing the whistleblower, etc.).

In this context, however, it should be noted that the delegation of the above tasks to an external responsible person does not relieve the employer of responsibility for possible breaches of obligations under the Whistleblower Protection Act at all stages - receiving and verifying reports, taking follow-up measures and informing the whistleblower about the results of the verification.

The employer's obligation to issue an internal regulation within the meaning of Section 10(9) of the Whistleblower Protection Act, and all other obligations under other relevant provisions of the Act, is non-transferable. If it were an addendum or annex to the parent company's internal regulation, it would no longer be an employer's internal regulation, but an internal regulation of the parent company, but, in particular, it would not be the case that the employer has fulfilled its statutory obligation to "issue an internal regulation in which it shall determine the details of...".

The employer, as a subsidiary, is therefore obliged to issue an internal regulation pursuant to Section 10(9) of the Whistleblower Protection Act and thus in accordance with national legislation, even though the parent company has already established its own global regulation for the purpose of whistleblowing. At the same time, the subsidiary may include the parent company's regulations in the internal regulation as long as they do not conflict with domestic legislation.

A mayor (function), a deputy (function) and a contractor (employment relationship) may also be a whistleblower if they have become aware of the anti-social activity in connection with the performance of their work or function. Such information must have been obtained legally, i.e. in the exercise of their powers . 

The law itself does not specify the professional qualifications of the responsible person. However, in order to fulfil the purpose of the law, it should have sufficient knowledge to properly perform the tasks of the responsible person and to examine reports as efficiently as possible. It is desirable that the responsible person, when reviewing reports, should be able to identify possible breaches of the law, be able to identify persons with the necessary expertise within the employer to help review the report (while maintaining confidentiality and secrecy) and, if necessary, be able to refer the report to the relevant authorities. He or she should have a minimum of specialist knowledge - knowledge of the legislation in force - and this should be basic. The moral integrity and trustworthiness of the responsible person is also an important quality that he or she should have in the organisation. 

The auditor-general shall also perform the function of responsible person in relation to 

• to a budgetary organisation of which the municipality is the founder,
• to a contributory organisation whose founder is the municipality,
• to the state enterprise of which the municipality is the founder,
• on its relationship to the fund held in trust by the municipality,
• in relation to a joint-stock company with 100% state participation in which it exercises shareholder rights.  

At the same time, the above-mentioned organizations, funds, state-owned enterprises have less than 50 employees. 

If organisations, state enterprises, funds have at least 50 employees (50 or more), it is up to the decision of the public authority (municipality, VUC) to determine that the function of the person responsible to these entities will be performed by the chief controller, otherwise they determine the person responsible themselves. 

In both cases, staff need to be aware of who acts as the responsible person and how to make a report.  Staff must have access to whistleblowing channels (at least one whistleblowing channel must be accessible at all times - e.g. electronic form, email address) and information on the internal whistleblowing review system must be made available to staff in a concise, comprehensible, clearly worded and easily accessible format.  It follows that if the organisations concerned and their staff are not aware of this, the internal reporting system is not properly set up.  

The Auditor-General may not relinquish his/her function as responsible person. Section 10(1) of the Act strictly stipulates that the Auditor General performs the function of the responsible person in the municipality and in the local authority. This is a duty which the Auditor-General is directly obliged to fulfil by law, and the wording of the law does not allow for any exceptions. In the case of the small number of chief inspectors, it is in the interest and at the discretion of the municipality/UOC to adjust the number of chief inspectors so that the chief inspector is able to cover the full breadth of the activities of the chief inspector, including the agenda of the responsible person.

An employee performing financial control within the meaning of a special regulation is obliged to make a report, but not within the meaning of the Whistleblower Protection Act, but within the meaning of Section 20(4)(e) of the Financial Control Act, and he makes the report on behalf of the public administration body, not as a natural person - a whistleblower. Such a report cannot be regarded as a report within the meaning of the Whistleblower Protection Act. He could be deemed to be a whistleblower if his employer prevents him from making the report or disagrees with it and he makes it anyway. Such a person is entitled to protection if he or she faces retaliation by the management of the organization because of a whistleblowing report he or she has made. 

Under that provision, the whistleblower need not also have protected whistleblower status, i.e. the whistleblower is not required to make a qualifying report. 

The time limit for filing a request is 15 days from the date on which the whistleblower became aware of the employment action. That is to say, 15 days from the date on which the employment act - e.g. dismissal - comes within the whistleblower's sphere of possession. Delay of that period cannot be forgiven; it is a limitation period. 

The confirmation of the suspension of an employment act does not contain an indication of the date of delivery of the confirmation to the whistleblower. The employer may inquire about the date of receipt of the confirmation of the suspension of the employment act at the office which provides the information or by direct communication with the employee. 

Disclosure is defined as the sharing of information to the public through web platforms, social networks or the media. In relation to proving that a person has disclosed facts about antisocial activity that have come to their attention in the course of their work, we consider that these facts will be easy to prove as they will be part of publicly accessible platforms.