Thus the so-called bill rider, often a lawmaker's last ditch effort to get a piece of legislation approved and on the books at any cost, even if it seems a little, well, sneaky.

Riders are simply amendments tacked to the end of a piece of legislation already under discussion. Quite often, their relevance to the bill in question is, at best, dubious.

Consider the case of Deputy Walter Bartoš of the senior opposition Civic Democrats (ODS), who last month stuck a rider that would establish a new university in České Budějovice to the bankruptcy reform bill currently awaiting approval in the Chamber of Deputies.

The ruling party is not immune to such tactics, even though they stand a better chance at setting the agenda. Deputy Josef Vlček of the Social Democrats (ČSSD) added a rider to a bill on hazardous-material handling last month that would give vendors an 18-month extension on selling packs of cigarettes containing fewer than 20 cigarettes.

Following Vlček's example, Deputy Josef Janeček of the Christian Democrats (KDU-ČSL) added a rider to the same bill, this one calling for a smoking ban in restaurants.

Riders are not uncommon, but their prevalence picks up dramatically when elections loom, as they do this June. Many in the chamber and Senate say they are annoyed at this, even if they themselves cannot necessarily claim to be exempt from the practice.

"In general I can say riders are really very annoying, but with weeks to go in the polls, the use of them has become extremely intensive," says Marie Rusová of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM) and deputy chairwoman of the Constitutional and Legal Committee.

All about scoring points

The chamber saw no fewer than 10 riders last month that had nothing in common with the bills to which they were attached.

"There are three obvious reasons for that," says Deputy Antonín Seďa (ČSSD). Members of Parliament create riders to pass laws they know wouldn't go beyond a committee or they are coerced by ministries that want to see a specific provision made law.

But Seďa's third reason cuts to the heart of why there are so many riders at election time: approval.

"It is a fact that the Parliament member wants to become popular by his amendment because some media consider the amendments as representative of that particular Parliament member," he says.

Whether or not the tactic is questionable, Seďa sees riders as a necessary evil.

"I personally don't refuse it because I can imagine the cases when it's necessary to save something," he says.

In fact, he has his own rider on the bankruptcy bill that would establish a new regional court in Uherský Brod.

Seďa says he would never have been able to get that measure passed on its own.

Making laws cloudy

While saving a measure might be good in the short term, it only hurts the country in the long term, says Eliška Wagnerová, deputy chief justice of the Constitutional Court.

"Speed should have no priority in this," she says. "If deputies work out laws for citizens, then the citizens should have a chance to learn about these laws."

Some have argued that lobbyists get Parliament members to push their agendas through riders rather than bills because there is less attention paid to them and less time to review them.

Even when they do not have malicious intent, riders cloud the law books.

"These add-ons cause a bill on water to have a provision on political party financing, which makes the law less understandable," Wagnerová says. "Riders have been used for a long time now, and I consider them vile."

Wagnerová says there is no current push to make riders illegal, but she says she "hopes one day the Court will be able to express itself on the issue."

Any deputy who feels the same way could challenge, perhaps through a rider on some pharmaceuticals bill.