Martin Šolc for Lidové noviny

According to Martin, the law should not serve politics or business, nor should it bury or even threaten fair business. “The law should not cause a fair businessman to ask his lawyer with a trembling voice three times a day whether or not he can do a certain thing or whether what his lawyer says will hold true or not.”

The new Corporations Act is a “call for change”, Martin believes. “However, some of the “not possible” guys still seem to be out there, so I hear bizarre interpretations here and there which entirely ignore business as it is in reality and even how things are interpreted elsewhere outside our Czech backyard.”

“Hence what I wish for us in 2016 is fairly clear: that all interpreters of the law, rather than putting up “grammar”, “doctrine” or “consistency” shields, look at how things are in real life and simply think about why they are that way.”

The column, which is only available in Czech, can be downloaded here.