Prague - A number of municipal police officers have undergone special training for dealing with domestic violence, but all that the current law allows them to do is to sit and wait.

The paragraph that would allow them to intervene simply does not exist.

It's becoming clear that there will be issues to reconsider when Czech MPs will be discussion a new amendment to the law on municipal police competences - not just  the often discussed issue of speed measurement in municipalities.

Responding to heavy protests by unhappy city mayors, Interior Minister Ivan Langer has already made some compromises regarding speed measuring that he originally wanted to only be the competence of the national police. He promised to include the speed measuring in the special fast-track amendment in the fall.

Unlike the speeding problems, the state has not yet mentioned how it will deal with domestic violence, which affects hundreds or thousands of people in the Czech Republic. The opposition is expected to intervene soon.

Two years of training and useless?

The Social Democrats (ČSSD) are planning to propose the expanded competences for municipal police for the new amendment, including the ability to intervene in domestic violence cases.

"We have trained 80 members of the municipal police, mainly women, to deal with violent people. And now they cannot intervene because the law does not allow them to do that," says Anna Čurdová, a ČSSD MP.

She points out that female police officers went through a two-year course that trained them to deal with both violent people as well as their victims and now they cannot use their knowledge.

"It does not make sense for the municipal police to wait for the national police if they come across a domestic violence case. The national police are the only ones allowed to expel the violent person from his or her home," says Čurdová.

No changes ahead, say Civic Democrats

Zdeněk Boháč from the Civic Democrats (ODS), who is also the head of a parliamentary subcommittee on  municipal police, said that he is planning to redesign the law, but he has not considered any changes regarding domestic violence and the municipal police.

"Municipal policemen can monitor the situation on the spot and if they discover a crime has been committed they can call the national police. That is the way it works," says Boháč.

He does not consider expanding municipal police competences to be necessary. "Municipal police never deals with crimes, it deals only with offences. And domestic violence is a crime," Boháč points out. He is sure that the cooperation between the national and the city police works very well.

"Female municipal police officers have been trained, that is true. But their training was focused mainly on phone assistance for the victims of domestic violence. They are able to use their knowledge even now," he says.

Čurdová does not share his views. She says the system is not flexible enough.

"The officers have to wait even though they would be able to intervene quickly and effectively. They know the localities better, so their attitude might actually be better," explains Čurdová.

Whether municipal police will in the end be able to intervene in domestic violence cases will be decided in the fall debates of the Czech parliament.