CYIL vol. 12 (2021)

Jindřich Psutka CYIL 12 (2021) in the field of emergency medical services (No. 53/2014 Coll.i.t. Framework agreement“). Its adoption was motivated mainly by efforts to improve the coverage of the ambulance service in the border areas of both countries. The immediate impetus for its negotiation was the growing number of cases of cooperation, but carried out without an appropriate legal framework. The absence of closer regulation was also reflected in a number of controversial situations that occur in the provision of urgent pre-hospital care in the border region. Many of them were (and still are) perceived negatively by the professional and lay public (e.g transfer of patients at the border; impossibility of free intervention of emergency medical services in the neighboring state in close proximity to the common border; home state, etc.). The Framework Agreement has the nature of an international bilateral agreement. It is a promulgated international treaty, the ratification of which has been approved by Parliament. The Czech Republic is therefore bound by this agreement. The contract forms part of its legal order. The rule defined in Article 10 of the Constitution of the Czech Republic applies here, according to which if an international agreement stipulates something other than a law, the international agreement shall apply. It is primarily a matter of precedence in the application sense, not of setting the ratio of international agreements to national regulations from the point of view of legal force. 3 Therefore, if the Framework Agreement overlaps with the Czech national regulation of the functioning of the emergency medical service, the regulation of the Framework Agreement should be applied as a matter of priority. In that regard, it should be noted that the German legislation lays down the scope of the Framework Agreement. It is typically an administrative contract within the meaning of the second sentence of Article 59 (2) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany. Such international agreements are usually concluded by the federal government (government agreements) or by individual federal ministries (departmental agreements – such agreements require the consent of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 4 ). With some simplification, it can be stated that administrative contracts are generally not subject to the approval of the legislature. 5 With its power, it falls under federal and state laws. 6 3 According to V. Mikule and R. Suchánek, Article 10 “in the event of a conflict between the content of a provision of an international treaty and the content of a provision of a law gives priority to a provision of an international treaty, because such a solution generally leads to the fulfillment of obligations under international law within the meaning of Article 1 (2) of the Constitution of the Czech Republic. However, this does not mean that an international treaty – as a part of the legal order – takes precedence over the law in the sense of hierarchical arrangement of the legal order, ie that it is superior to the law in this sense, but that it has primacy “– MIKULE, Vladimír, SUCHÁNEK, Radovan. In SLÁDEČEK, Vladimír, MIKULE, Vladimír, SUCHÁNEK, Radovan, SYLLOVÁ, Jindřiška. Ústava České republiky . 2. vydání. [Constitution of the Czech Republic. 2nd edition.]. C.H. Beck, Praha 2016, p. 121. 4 For more information, eg STARSKI, Paulina In von MÜNCH, Ingo, KUNIG, Philip, STARSKI, Paulina. Grundgesetz-Kommentar. 7. Auflage. C.H. Beck, München 2021, C.H. Beck, Art. 59 Rn. 114. 5 Cf. more details eg NETTESHEIM, Matin In MAUNZ, Theodore, DÜRING, Günter. Grundgesetz-Kommentar 92. EL. C.H. Beck, München 2020, GG Art. 59 Rn. 193. 6 In this context, it should only be noted that the different enshrinement of the Framework Agreement in Czech and German law also causes some purely practical problems. An example is the application of Article 8, which deals with the equipment of the outreach group in the event of a cross-border intervention. Such equipment needed to carry out the intervention of the field team under the Framework Agreement must comply with the requirements laid down by the legislation in force at the place where the base of the field team is located – it must therefore comply with the national law of the rescue home State. According to Article 8 (2), the following shall apply: “The transboundary movement of outbound group equipment shall not be subject to any prohibitions or restrictions on imports or exports or to authorizations by the competent national authorities.” In the Czech legal

446