Civic associations established pursuant to the Act on Association are independent legal persons. This form of non-profit entity is widely used in the activities of sports clubs, interest associations, ecological movements and others, particularly with regard to the flexibility of the legal regulation concerning the establishment and functioning of this entity. An advantage is also the low economic burden given the fact that upon the establishment of an association no property contributions are required by law and the registration procedure is not subject to any fee. With effect from 3 July 2006, a substantial amendment was made to the legal regulation of the name of associations. Whereas until that time the Act merely provided that the name of an association must differ from the name of a legal person which already carries on activities in the territory of the Czech Republic, from the effective date of the amendment in question the name of an association must differ significantly from the name of a legal person which already carries on activities in the territory of the Czech Republic, from the name of a public authority of the Czech Republic, from the name of an international organisation, its body or its institution and from the name of the European Union and its institutions; the name of an association must contain the designation “občanské sdružení” or the abbreviation “o. s.”.

The said regulation applies not only to newly established associations, but also retroactively to associations already in existence. These associations, too, established in accordance with the original legal regulation, must bring their name into conformity with the new regulation within 3 years from the date of entry into force of the said amendment. The fact that this is by no means a marginal question is evidenced in particular by the fact that to date the Ministry of the Interior registers a total number of 65,345 civic associations and the substantial majority of them do not meet the newly introduced requirements for the name of an association (as may be ascertained by inspection of the list of civic associations maintained by the Ministry of the Interior).

For completeness I add that a change in the name of an association is at the same time a change in its statutes and this must be notified to the Ministry of the Interior within the statutory period.

This text was translated from Czech to English using an AI translator.