Minister of the Interior

PhDr. Vaclav Grulich

     In 1967 Mr.Grulich completed his course of studies at the Faculty of Arts of the Jan Evangelista Purkyne University (today the Masaryk University) in Brno. He became a teacher and later a regional school inspector, and, eventually, a senior lecturer in the Department of Pedagogy and Psychology of the Institute for Paramedical Personnel Training. During the period of "normalization", he was dismissed from this post and denied access to the teaching profession. He then worked as a hand and a car mechanic in the Zetor Brno tractor works until 1990, and, in the years 1990-1992, as Personnel Director in that state-owned company. Mr.Grulich was a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1954 until 1970 when he was expelled; in the 1980s, he joined the Obroda (Rebirth) club of reform Communists, and helped to found the Civic Forum in Brno. Since the autumn of 1990, he has been a member of the CSSD and, from February 1993 to March 1997, the Party's Vice-Chairman. From 1992, Mr.Grulich was MP for the Social Democratic Party in the Czech National Council and the first Chairman of the CSSD Members' Group; from 1993, its Vice-Chairman. In 1996 Mr.Grulich was elected to the Chamber of Deputies of the CR Parliament and he served from 1996 to 1998, as the Chairman of the Chamber's Committee for public administration, regional development and environmental control. He was re-elected MP for the CSSD in 1998.