Border Defence and Migration in the Czech Republic

Abstract

The Czech Republic, as a member state of the European Union, applies the so-called “zero” regime of state border protection, which is based on the abolition of internal border protection and border controls when crossing internal borders. However, this does not apply to Third-Country nationals. Although the strong influence of European legislation is also evident in this area, the Czech Republic has legislation regulating the defence of its national borders and protecting against illegal migration. This paper focuses on such legislation. The introduction presents the constitutional regulation of Czech state borders and the concretisation of these constitutional norms at the statutory level through two basic acts: State Borders and Protection of the State Borders. Furthermore, attention has been paid to protecting the Czech Republic against illegal migration, mainly contained in the Act on the Residence of Foreigners and partly in the Asylum Act, where emphasis is on the de facto protection mechanism and administrative expulsion. The second part of the paper presents criminal law regulations for protecting the Czech Republic against illegal migration. The article concludes with a statistical overview of illegal migration for 2022.