The pandemic of the infectious disease Covid-19 affected everyday life including public administration. In order to proceed with its duties, public administration had to adapt to these new and unprecedented conditions. The main goal of the article is to assess how public administration bodies adapted to the Covid-19 pandemic, especially in terms of the principle of the speed of procedure in the sense of the right to a fair trial within a reasonable time. In order to achieve this goal, the article focuses on public administration’s adaptation to the pandemic from the perspective of the Visegrad Group countries (V4). It analyses the digitalisation of public administration in relation to delivery, speed of procedure, usage of new technologies, as well as several other areas of public life affected by the pandemic. Specific examples from all V4 countries are analysed and compared in order to identify which approaches were taken by public administration, how they changed the way public administration carried out administrative procedures, and which values were decisive for these changes. Based on these examples, the article concludes that the approach taken by respective legislatures and public administrations in the V4 region complies with the law, but also presents several exceptions.

Introduction In Europe, young sexual and gender minority (SGM) people continue to face discrimination in the labour sector despite advances in legislation towards their acceptance and equal treatment. Non-discrimination policy strategies helping SGM individuals are not equally enforced in all contexts, making it difficult for many SGM individuals to disclose their identity, hence undermining their health and well-being. Methods Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted between October 2020 and February 2021 with 55 SGM youth (18–27 years) having work experience from Austria, Croatia, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain and the UK. Results From the analysis, three overarching themes were significant: (1) societal discrimination played a major role in sociocultural factors and policy considerations, (2) workplace discrimination had distinct factors and impacts on SGM individuals and (3) SGM inclusion should use strategies to ensure workplace diversity and equality. Conclusions SGM individuals from contexts of poor acceptance tended to hide their identity in the workplace, while transgender and non-binary individuals were prone to experience force-disclosure and discrimination in all aspects of employment. There is a lack of resolute reaction from policy makers in managing problems faced by SGM people in workplaces. New laws improving the status of SGM people need to be further adopted, staff training should be implemented, and managers are crucial in achieving an inclusive climate in the workplace. Policy Implications It is essential to implement policies on how to effectively handle problems faced by sexual and gender minority people in the workplace.

The paper focuses on railway services in the Slovak Republic and describes the organization of public administration in this area and its responsibility for protecting consumer rights. It analyses customers’ rights stipulated in the Slovak legislation and comes to a conclusion that they drive mainly from the EU law. The paper also presents a customer satisfaction survey regarding rail services in the Slovak Republic and several other EU states and proposes suggestions on how to improve customer satisfaction. The aim is to start a discussion on customers’ rights in the Slovak Republic because in the last couple of years the total number of rail customers is on the rise.

The paper focuses on legal obstacles affecting freedom to conduct a business in the Slovak Republic. It points out the freedom to conduct a business with regards to the Slovak and European perspective and compares it with the legal conditions laid down for starting a business pursuant to the Slovak legal regulation. The analysis especially orientates to define general conditions for natural persons and legal persons to be met in order to start a business, but also to describe special conditions, i.e. the requirements for qualification. The paper focuses on all persons who want to conduct a business in the Slovak Republic. Since the freedom to conduct a business is not necessarily related to citizenship, the paper analyses conditions laid to aliens. The general conditions to conduct a business are: a minimum age, a full legal capacity, and integrity of natural persons or representatives of legal persons. The obstacles to conduct a business are shown through analysis related to the main legislative problems and the article is giving several proposals for more business friendly legal regulation.

The article deals with the idea of simplification of administrative procedure on the example of legal regulation that can be found in Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. This legal regulation comes from the same or similar evolution and legal conditions. General legal regulation of administrative procedure is represented by so called Code of Administrative Procedure. Existence of such code in all mentioned countries might be regarded as a first step towards simplification. Using research methods—dogmatic, normative, and, namely, comparative—the article examines concrete examples of simplification in mentioned countries that have similar approaches in solving this demand. This article mentions possible views (or addressees) on the need of simplifications as well as possible limits of this issue. In this sense, the protection of the public interest and protection of rights of individuals presents certain limitations to simplification. Legal regulation of administrative procedure is complicated. Although each legal regulation is in detail specific, we can find some common solutions in particular legal regulation of simplifications. Such results of this article might be useful (not only) for further comparison in European countries.