• 18/12/2022
• By wizewebsite
• 377 Views

The work of the consul charges me, it is a rest from advocacy and family, says Dvořáková<

You are the only representative of Iceland in the Czech Republic. What do you take care of?My primary role as a consul is to be a liaison officer in the Czech Republic in case something happens to an Icelander here - he loses his passport, has a traffic accident, gets covid, dies. I have already had to deal with all this in my two years of work. Or, for example, I received an e-mail from an Icelandic woman saying that her brother lives with us, with whom they are in very intense contact under normal circumstances, but now he has not heard from her for two weeks and she is so worried about him and wants me to she found out if he was okay. I am also here to ensure that the Czechs who worked in Iceland receive a pension, because every year I have to check if they are alive and give them the appropriate stamp and only then Iceland will pay them their pension. The rest depends on me, how active I will be and how I really want to graduate from Iceland in the Czech Republic. And I'm the type of person who, when I take a position, I want my job to be done well. So I'm trying to graduate from Iceland both in terms of business, culture and sport.

How did you get to work as a consul? In a completely human way, I think that the main impulse was that I was the captain of the ministry's floorball team at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (laughs) It was because of this that I got to know a whole range of people across the entire ministry, which I wouldn't have if I was locked in some legal cell. And it was these colleagues who came across at one point that Iceland was looking for a new honorary consul. The requirement was that it should be someone younger, because the previous honorary consul had worked in the Czech Republic for thirty years. It should also ideally be a woman, a lawyer, who will be organizationally capable with good contacts at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, possibly, at other ministries as well. A friend who came across it told me afterwards: "I hadn't even finished the soup and I already knew who it was going to be". So my name came up, Iceland contacted me, I was in the selection process, I had an interview with the ambassador. And in the end, they chose me out of all the applicants.

Did you ever think during the selection process that you would not accept the job?I had to think about it in my head, at first I thought that I was not a suitable candidate - I like the north and Iceland, but I don't speak Icelandic, I have no business contacts there, so why me? But on the other hand, I was very flattered. What was decisive for me was the interview with Mr. Ambassador, who was great - also a lawyer, by the way. He explained to me what my role would be. At the same time, he assured me that since it was an unpaid job, he would not occupy me every day, which was crucial for me at the time, since my second son was barely a year old at the time. So I thought I would go for it, I agreed with my partner in law, Štěpán Holub, that we would go for the project and today we do not distinguish whether an Icelander or a Czech client is calling.

You already mentioned it, but how does the work in diplomacy complement the work of a lawyer?The work recharges me, it is such a break for me from lawyer and family work - sometimes also the cherry on the cake, which allows me to meet people from other social groups. And that's fine.

Approximately how many Icelanders do we have in the Czech Republic?The Ministry of the Interior told me that by November 2020 there were 37 of them officially registered. In reality, I think there are around a hundred of them. Of course I don't have them all counted, there is no obligation for Icelanders to email me when they arrive. But of course I'm gradually trying to break into the local Icelandic community. The friendly nature of the local Icelanders helps me a lot in this, and I really love the Icelandic custom of calling anyone by their first name. In short, an Icelander just texts me 'Hi Klara' and that's it. By the way, now before Christmas (the interview took place before the Christmas holidays, editor's note) I recommend going to Gudbjartur and David at Artic Bakehouse for the best cinnamon rolls or to buy fish from Icelandic waters from Icelandicfish for Christmas dinner.

Thus, the creation of an Icelandic community. Is there anything else you want to work on as a consul?I would like to improve the image of Iceland - not only as a natural and tourist destination, but also as a business destination and a cultural destination. Most of the Icelanders I know in the Czech Republic, or are slowly getting to know, are businessmen or artists. Some innovative projects in Iceland are amazing, and this is little known in the Czech Republic. It is also not known that Czechs have the opportunity to invest in Icelandic projects, which is what the Icelandic Orka Ventures is trying to do here.

The long road to becoming a lawyer

You come from a family of lawyers, have you ever thought about becoming a lawyer?It is true that my great-grandfather, grandfather and father were lawyers , just like, for example, my aunt is a lawyer. On the one hand, you could say that I had it lined up, but that's why, as a stubborn child and the first-born daughter, I always told myself that no, I won't be a lawyer. I wanted to be a teacher, a fashion designer until I was half way through high school, everything was possible in my head. It wasn't until sometime in the fourth grade that things suddenly changed and I told myself that I would go to law school after all. But I went there with the vision that I would like to be a judge.

But now you are a lawyer, what has changed?When I studied law, I found out what difficulties can arise when interpreting the law, or how the law is sometimes poorly written. So I thought to myself: "Should I serve this right?" To this day, I find it much easier to be on one side or the other. Having a definite assignment and knowing who to kick for, rather than being the judge in the middle to find justice, which is also blind. So I deviated from the idea of ​​the lady judge and went a different way.

For some time you also worked under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.Yes, I enjoyed the law of the European Union. I also chose the subject of my diploma thesis, which was related to EU issues, even though it was about the EU protection of bird habitats, so I then applied for an internship at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the Department of Community Law, where the government representative for the representation of the Czech Republic before the Court works Court of the European Union. I was on an internship and in the end it turned out that I started working there for four years and was in charge of preliminary questions put by the courts of the member states to the Court of Justice.

Does representing the state differ from representing, for example, an individual?The basis is the same – you get a case and you want to win it. But of course the state has no arms and legs, the ministries speak for it. On the contrary, the insistence of clients who have arms and legs is of course more intense, that is probably the basic difference. (laughter) In short, in advocacy you have to learn to communicate with clients.

You are currently referred to as an expert in travel law. So how did you end up with this?As part of my hobbies, I was always interested in mountains and I was always active in sports. Sometime in 2008, I ran into friends who worked as mountain guides, and it turned out that I helped them found the Czech Association of Mountain Guides. I got involved in the training of guides and started teaching them the law, because even mountain guides are actors in the tourism industry, they just provide one service – guiding in the mountains. At the beginning, I had to familiarize myself with a lot of things, for example, what are the obligations of one and the other party, when is it a tour and when is it not, what is the responsibility when something happens to the client. We had big evenings full of questions on such topics at mountain courses, and I was very surprised by how many people who work in tourism do not really understand it from a legal point of view. We lawyers have the feeling that consumer rights are hanging around every corner, but entrepreneurs often do not know how to translate them correctly. So I thought that I would help entrepreneurs in the tourism industry in this regard. At the same time, I saw a certain hole in the market, I didn't know anyone else who was more dedicated to it. One evening after a successful ministerial floorball tournament, I therefore decided to leave the ministry, I called Štěpán Holub, whom I already knew at the time, and asked him if they needed a paralegal. They needed So I switched to advocacy to a team of people I liked. And they were surprised that I was willing to descend from the heights of the Court here into the swamps of the Czech legal profession. (laughter)

Prague was given a year to catch its breath

How did the pandemic affect tourism?Absolutely fundamental. In the first months, it was mainly about traveling offices not knowing what to do, because it was a completely unprecedented situation. Both in the Czech Republic and in the entire European Union, we have legislation that is based on the fact that there is free movement of persons, so a state cannot simply say: "I will close the borders and not let anyone in". But this suddenly happened, individual states without any coordination started to close the borders. No one expected this, so travel agencies and entrepreneurs did not know what to do, in which situation to return the money, in which situation not to return it. For the first three months, we didn't do anything other than really helping the offices by traveling to set up communication with clients and sort out which situation was clear and which situation was really controversial. There, for example, we advised them to try to come to an agreement with the client.

The travel agencies themselves were overwhelmed by the administration in this regard. The traveler is used to contacting suppliers, creating that beautiful package, and then selling that package and communicating to the customer, ideally, instructions right before the trip. But suddenly everything was different, things were constantly changing, people were calling in fear and wanted to disrupt everything.

Did things calm down from the point of view of travel agencies later?Everyone hoped that the situation would be resolved somehow. But she was not getting better and the money in the accounts was dwindling. Many travel agencies began to lay off, but some were lucky and "healed" in the summer, or quickly reoriented to another market. Offices that owned or paid off some property abroad, such as cottages in Croatia, fared poorly. In other words - just as I helped establish travel offices for several years, I then had to send several offices into insolvency. That was very sad.

Will the coronavirus pandemic change the way people travel? We used to have a problem with overtourism, can this be improved?I think this does not depend on tourists, but on governments and individual cities. I wonder if Prague, now that it has had a year to catch its breath, is thinking about it. Has anyone said to themselves: "Dude, this is what Prague looks like when it's empty and this when it's completely jammed." What is better?” From this point one can go in different directions. We should think about what kind of tourist we want in Prague and what kind of tourist we want elsewhere in the Czech Republic. We don't have to sell everything to everyone.

Are you active in the International Mountaineering Federation, do you consider yourself a mountaineer?Certainly not myself, but I am a person who likes mountains. I can handle high-altitude tourism in the Tatra sense, not Mount Everest. My highest climbed mountain is Mont Blanc. Of course, in addition to walking, I also sometimes like to reach for the rock, I can manage some climbing routes. However, I have two small children aged four and six and since then there is not much time for climbing. As a mother of two children, an honorary consul and the owner of a law office, I'm now more than happy to find time to at least run (but mountain!) or do yoga.

Have you ever had the feeling that you had to choose between career and family?I left the ministry because of similar considerations. I thought to myself: "Yeah, you're 30, so what, you want to be in that ministry until the end of your days, what will happen when you have children, they'll be waiting for you right there in this position with the European Court of Justice, which is such a narrow profile?" I didn't have the feeling that when I returned to the ministry after maternity leave, that my chair would be waiting for me there. But now I'm a law firm owner, I've got it lined up and it's actually the best thing you can do - become a law firm owner, then you just have to juggle a child and a job because you're employing people and you can't tell them you're not going to do anything for two years . Simply, when you have to, you have to, but I really never had the feeling that I had to choose.

You had children while you were building your position in law.Yes. I just have one photo from when I was working on a book on travel law. I did everything to have it ready before I was born, but in the end it turned out that I was doing the final proofreading with my son in my hand.

What role did your husband play in all this?My husband is great, he is very tolerant and also a workaholic, which I think is necessary for both of them to have the same pace, because then as one the other also understands that life requires a family, but also work. Hubby is great about not requiring hot dinners, so that saves me a lot of work. (laughter)

Fortunately, we both also have similar hobbies, but of course our marriage is also very much about tolerance. I also have to say that I come from a family where the woman was always a hard worker, so I never expected any huge help from my husband. It's definitely cool, but my mindset is that I always have to be ready to take care of myself and the kids.

Do you think it's a good setup for women to rely on themselves?I'm not saying this is right. I think about it a lot myself. I like men who automatically expect to take care of—not help—their children because they are their children. But at the same time, I'm a person who doesn't mind cutting a bigger slice of bread than my husband has. But that's my choice.

"I always preferred to be friends with boys"

According to judge Kateřina Šimáčková, a skilled lawyer disappears between the ages of thirty and forty. Do you feel the same way?It's not like that in my social bubble. I have a number of female colleagues around me who have children and at the same time work normally in the legal profession. I often say that a lawyer with children is much more efficient because she values ​​her working time much more. Of course, it is good if a woman moves a little higher in the lawyer's ladder before having children, so that when she has children, she at least has a paralegal with her who will do a certain part of the work. When you have a child, you don't have a day if you could work on a case for 12 hours straight, your day is fragmented and you often cannot respond to the client's requests immediately. This is exactly what you need your colleagues, your team for. You have to learn how to delegate work, delegate work and give feedback. A quality colleague is worth its weight in gold.

Do you think advocacy is a men's club? When I really think about it, I am slowly meeting more and more female lawyers when dealing with client cases. In our office, Štěpán Holub is already strictly protected, because we have not had a colleague - a lawyer - in the core team for a long time. But yes, most of the law business is in the hands of men. I've always preferred to be friends with boys than with girls, maybe that's why it's natural for me and I don't deal with it.

Did you feel like you had to push yourself harder because you're a woman? I always went after what I wanted, I worked hard to achieve it. I was mostly surrounded by men and when I think about it, I'm either lucky or I know how to deal with men. It has never happened to me that a man threw an obstacle under my feet just because I am a woman. I read an interview with Lucía Hrda and she mentioned that they caused problems for her in court, for example, when she was pregnant. I have never experienced this, and even I represented my clients in court while pregnant. Or I was in court two weeks after giving birth with a baby, when my husband was waiting in the car, but I always came across a solid judge, which I was pleasantly surprised by.

What do you enjoy the most about your job?I have worked my way up to the point where I can really handle travel law and I enjoy pushing the boundaries further, trying to forge new jurisprudence. So I'm in a state where I'm constantly figuring out how I can still help female travelers. Or I don't just deal with the basics anymore, but the "grits" - difficult cases. A lawyer will work on any case for you, but he will much prefer to work on a really interesting, difficult case, ideally a well-paid one. (laughter)

What can be imagined under that, can you give an example? When I gave a presentation to travel agents and agencies at the beginning of December, they were excited about the case that I managed to win regarding commissions for canceled tours. I represented a travel agency in a dispute with Neckermann. They sold tours and received a commission for it, that's how commission sales work. Neckermann's owner, Thomas Cook, went bankrupt, so Neckermann told the agency that he would not receive any commission. We studied the contract and said we can break this contract. Of course, it wasn't entirely clear, but that was the point. We dragged the case all the way to court, where we managed to justify that the refusal of a commission for the work done is invalid when the tour organizer is bankrupt. So Neckermann has to pay a commission to the supplier - the travel agency. Also interesting are the cases related to section 16, these are medical cases. Most often, it is an oncology patient who needs a certain treatment. In some cases, however, such treatment is not covered by public health insurance and often costs hundreds of thousands to millions of crowns. The Czech health system allows such treatment to be paid for, but a request for so-called extraordinary reimbursement must be submitted. The approach of the General Health Insurance Company is very strict in these matters, so many applications are rejected. When such a case comes to us, we fight with the insurance company to ensure that the patient receives reimbursement. These are very intense disputes.

We touched on medical law. You also deal with cases of medical negligence in patients. What are the most common cases?These are, for example, cases where the baby is damaged during birth, the bile duct is cut that should not have been cut, the intestine is cut during ovarian surgery and it is found out later, or cases of botched eye surgery. The most common and worst are gynecological problems. We also deal with aesthetic surgery.

We talked about travel law and travel, where would you like to visit in the near future? Home for Christmas – to Jeseníky, of course to Iceland and then again to Curacao, which is an island country in the Caribbean. It would be my third visit because my brother's wife is a Dutch doctor who is originally from that island, so we have family there and every time we fly in we are greeted by "half the island".