Červen 2008

COMPREHENSIVE SURVEY OF CZECH RESTITUTIONS IRREGULARITIES.

Czech Coordinating Office

CZECH COORDINATING OFFICE,

International non-governmental Czech organization

European Offices: B. Meiser Straße 6, 91522 Ansbach, Germany

Overseas Offices: 1103-100 Antibes Drive, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M2R 3N1

Wentworth Bldg.62, Univ. of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia

COMPREHENSIVE SURVEY

OF CZECH RESTITUTIONS IRREGULARITIES.

Our organization has close to 500 individuals and 34 Czech associations as members. Our members are in the Czech Republic, Canada, United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, Sweden and Australia. We can send listing on demand.

Following intentional untruths, falsehoods and misguidances have been found in the

handling of restitutions by the Czech Republic and by the European Union:

I. Discrimination of Czechs, who fled the Communist Czechoslovakia in order to preserve life and values for their children and themselves.

II. Deceiving the European Commission during Access Negotiations.

III. Violations of Signed and Ratified International Treaties.

In addition we wish to mention under chapter

IV. The conflict of Article 295 of the Treaty Establishing the European Community with this very Treaty and with other Treaties and Conventions.

V. Our Efforts for the Redress of this Situation.

I.

Discriminating Legislation

Discrimination of Czechs in the CR and abroad started in 1991, when Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic, passed a series of discriminating laws. Here we name a few:

Law 87/1991 about Extrajudicial Restitutions,

Law 229/1991 about Adaptation of Ownership Relationships to Land and other Agricultural Properties,

Law 243/1992 by which Certain Question Relating to Law 229/1991 are Adapted

Law 39/2000 About Granting a One-Time Monetary Amount to Members of Czechoslovak Armies Abroad and of Allied Armies in years 1939 to 1945,

Law 261/2001 About Granting a One-Time Monetary Amount to Participants of the National Struggle for Liberation, to Political Prisoners and to Person Placed into Military Labour Camps for Reason of Race or Religion.

Law 172/2002 About Compensation of People hauled off to the USSR or to Camps Established by USSR in other States.

There may be other discriminating laws unknown to us.

II.

Deceiving the European Commission During the Access Negotiations.

At the time of accession negotiations Czech Republic deceived the European Commission in several ways. European Commission accepted those falsehoods without any objections in part 3 - "Restitution Legislation of the 1990s" of its publication "The Czechoslovak Presidential Decrees of 14. October 2002":

1. Withheld existence of the non-discriminating Law 119/1990 About Judicial Rehabilitations

2. Withheld existence of the non-discriminating Law 403/1990 About Mitigation of some Wrongs

3. Withheld existence of further discriminating laws as stated on page 1 - Law 39/2000, 261/2000, 4.Withheld following decisions of the Czech Constitutional Court:

ÚS 117/93 stated that rehabilitated persons did not lose their ownership, when the confiscating

decisions have been cancelled.

ÚS 173/95 stated that cancellation of the confiscation decision is a document entitling

the rehabilitated person to have its property entered into the cadastral register.

ÚS 130/96 recommended to courts to re-examine thoroughly cases, in which the

confiscations have been cancelled by law 119/90, as the rehabilitated person did not lose

its ownership, because those decisions have been cancelled as of the day they have been

pronounced.

ÚS 363/98 emphasizes that ownership rights to land confiscated for escape from the

Republic, remained intact because of law 119/90.

III.

Violations of Signed and Ratified International Treaties.

CR violated:

1. The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights,

2. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

3. The International Convention on Civil and Political Rights,

4. The Treaty Establishing the European Community and

5. The Charter of Fundamental Rights.

We are claiming violation of following treaties, regulations, directives and decisions:

1. The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights.

Article 14 - Prohibition of Discrimination. CR discriminates in laws 87/91 and 229/91

against people who had to flee, often to save lives. Those people are equal by the wrongs

suffered from the state and cannot be discriminated against just because they settled e.g.

in the United States.

Article17 - Prohibition of abuse of rights. CR engages in the destruction of the right of

non-discrimination.

Article 1 of Protocol One to the Convention. Protection of Property. CR protects just the

communist holders of the stolen properties.

2. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Article 1. All people are born free and equal in dignity and rights . . .

Article 2. Everyone is entitled to all rights in the Declaration without any distinction . . .

Article 7. All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination . . .

Article 13 (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own . . .

Article 17. Noone shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 30. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State to

engage in the destruction of the rights . . . .

3. The International Covenant on Civil and Political rights.

Article 1 - 2. All peoples may freely dispose of their natural wealth.....In no way may they be deprived of their own means of existence.

Article 2 - 3. (1) To ensure that any person whose rights as herein recognized are

violated shall have an effective remedy . . .

Article 5 - 1. Nothing may be interpreted as implying to any State any right to . .

destruction of any of the rights . . .

Article 5 - 2. There shall be no restriction upon or derogation from any of the

fundamental human rights . . .

Article 12 -2. Everyone shall be free to leave any countrey, including his own.

Article 26. All persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any

discrimination to the equal protection of the law.

4. Treaty Establishing the European Community

Article 12. . . . any discrimination on grounds of nationality shall be prohibited.

Article 13 . . . .Council to combat discrimination

5. Charter of Fundamental Right

Article 21 - 2 ....Any discrimination on grounds of nationality shall be prohibited.

To this day Czech courts are basing their decisions on the discriminating laws, mainly on laws 87/1991 and 229/1991 and even on law 261/2001 About Granting a One-Time Monetary Amount to Participants of the National Struggle for Liberation, to Political Prisoners and to Person Placed into Military Labour Camps for Reason of Race or Religion.

CR Continues in the discrimination in spite of numerous reprimands of the United Nations:

United Nations Concluding Observations of the Human Rights Committee CCPR/CO/72/CZE:

C. Principal subjects of concern and recommendations

5. While the Covenant has a status superior to domestic legislation, not all rights stipulated in the Covenant have been incorporated in the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, which leads to confusion as to the full protection of all Covenant rights. It is also not clear what the relationship between the Covenant and the Charter and other parts of the constitutional order is (art. 2).

The State party should clarify the relationship between the Covenant rights not included in the Charter and the constitutional order, so as better to ensure full implementation of all Covenant rights in all circumstances.

6. The Committee is concerned at the apparent absence of procedures for dealing with the implementation of the Views of the Committee under the Optional Protocol. The Committee deeply regrets the position adopted by the State party in the cases of Simunek (516/1992) and Adam (586/1994), regarding the restitution of property or compensation under Act 87/91. The Committee also regrets the State party's response to its decision that the pre-condition of Czech citizenship for restitution or compensation under Act 87/91 was discriminatory and in violation of article 26 of the Covenant. A decision by the Constitutional Court on the constitutionality of the relevant law cannot exonerate the State party from its obligations under the Covenant

United Nations Concluding Observations of the Human Rights Committee CCPR/C/CZE/CO/2:

C. Principal subjects of concern and recommendations

7. The Committee expresses its concern at the State party’s restrictive interpretation of, and

failure to fulfil its obligations under the Optional Protocol to the Covenant and the Covenant

itself. The State party has advanced difficulties in implementing the Committee’s Views,

including in numerous cases, under Act No. 87/91 of 1991, concerning the restitution of

property or compensation to persons who were forced to flee from the State party and adopted

the nationality of the country of refuge. The Committee recalls that, by acceding to the Optional

Protocol, the State party recognized the Committee’s competence to receive and examine

complaints from individuals under the State party’s jurisdiction.

The Committee urges the State party to implement all of its Views, including those

under Act No. 87/91 of 1991, in order to restore the property of persons concerned,

or otherwise compensate them.

Gratzinger CCPR/C/91/D/1463/2006

......Thus, the Committee concludes that the application to the authors of Act No.87/1991, which lays down a citizenship requirement for the restitution of confiscated property, violated their rights under article 26 of the Covenant. 8. The Human Rights Committee, acting under article 5, paragraph 4, of the Optional Protocol, is of the view that the facts before it disclose a violation of article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

CCPR Bohumír Mařík 945/2000

6.4 The Committee recalls its Views in the cases of Simunek, Adam, Blazek and Des Fours Walderode, (7) where it held that article 26 of the Covenant had been violated: "the authors in that case and many others in analogous situations had left Czechoslovakia because of their political opinions and had sought refuge from political persecution in other countries, where they eventually established permanent residence and obtained a new citizenship. Taking into account that the State party itself is responsible for the author's ... departure, it would be incompatible with the Covenant to require the author … to obtain Czech citizenship as a prerequisite for the restitution of [his] property or, alternatively, for the payment of appropriate compensation". (8) The Committee further recalls its jurisprudence (9) that the citizenship requirement in these circumstances is unreasonable. In addition, the State party's argument that the citizenship condition was included in the law to incite owners.

8. In accordance with article 2, paragraph 3 (a), of the Covenant, the State party is under an obligation to provide the author with an effective remedy, which may be compensation, and in the case of the Plzen property, restitution, or, in the alternative compensation. The Committee reiterates that the State party should review its legislation to ensure that all persons enjoy both equality before the law and equal protection of the law.

IV.

The Conflict of Article 295 of the Treaty Establishing the European Community, now Article 345 of the Lisbon Treaty, with this very Treaty and with other Treaties and Conventions.

Article 295 of the Treaty Establishing the European Community, (Art. 345 of the Lisbon

Treaty),which reads:

The Treaties shall in no way prejudice the rules in Member States governing the

system of property ownership.

Against this article we submitted our Petition 66/2007 dated 6. September 2006. Please see the

petition below. We never received any answer to this petition !

V.

Our Efforts for the Redress of this Situation.

We emphasize that from the Petition Committee of the European Parliament, we did not receive an answer to either of those following petitions.

***

CZECH COORDINATING OFFICE,

International non-governmental Czech organization

European Offices: B. Meiser Straße 6, 91522 Ansbach, Germany

Overseas Offices: 1103-100 Antibes Drive, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M2R 3N1

Wentworth Bldg.62, Univ. of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia

January 29, 2003.

European Parliament

Members’ Activities Division

L-2929 Luxembourg

Petition about Discrimination on the Basis of Nationality.

Our organization represents 34 Czech organizations in the Czech Republic and abroad and hundreds of Czechs in the Czech Republic, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, France, Netherlands and Belgium, in Canada, United States and Australia. We are asking for the retroactive removal of discrimination from Czech Laws 87/1991 and 229/1991 and for prohibition of the use of the discriminatory clauses of these laws by the Czech Courts and by the European Union. These laws discriminate against Czechs who fled, during the Communist era, to European states, to the United States and to other countries all over the world and consequently lost their original citizenship.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee condemned this practice in its decisions 516/1991 Simunek, 586/1994 Josef Frank Adam, 857/1999 Blazek, Hartman and Krizek and especially in the Concluding Observations of the Human Rights Committee of August 27, 2001 as it violates article 26 of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, signed by the Czech Republic. Czech government does not pay any attention to these decisions and dismisses them as „not legally binding“, although it is a signatory of the Covenant and the Optional Protocol.

European Court of Human Rights recently evaded the question of discrimination in the two Czech laws mentioned above. It refused to accept complaints of two Czech families (Gratzinger 39794/98 and Polacek 38645/97) who obtained US citizenship after having escaped from Communist Czechoslovakia. The Court declined to consider the question of discrimination (Convention Art. 14), unless it is related to a violation of another article, in this case Art. 1 of Protocol 1, Protection of Property. Finally, the Court refused to consider the complaint of the two families and accepted the version of the Czech government, declaring that, according to (the discriminating) law 87/1991, they could not get their property back because they were no longer Czech citizens.

In this way the European Court of Human Rights used a blatantly discriminatory law to justify discrimination.

On October 14, 2002 the European Commission issued Summary Findings about Benes decrees and about restitutions. This document is utterly irresponsible. In it the European Commission admits that to prepare it, it used documents submitted by the Czech party and is listing them. Missing is Law 119/1990, which cancelled all confiscating court decisions as of the day they have been pronounced. Also decisions of the Czech Constitutional Court 363/1998, 64/1991, 130/1996, and 177/1993, stating that due to the cancellation of the confiscating verdicts the proprietorship was never lost, are missing. The Commission dismisses the discrimination, stating that the deadlines for applications have passed.

In art. 3. 1, the Commission mentions the International Compensation Agreements. These have no relation to restitutions. Their only purpose is to detract from the facts.

After the United Nations Human Rights Committee repeatedly reprimanded the Czech Republic, Czechs passed three more discriminatory laws:

Law 39/2000 about Compensation for Members of Czechoslovak and Allied Armies in years 1939 to 1945, Law 261/2001 about Compensation for Political Prisoners Jailed Between 1948 and 1990 and Law 172/2002 about Compensation for Persons Abducted to the USSR. These three laws also discriminate against Czechs, who were fighting on the side of the Allies, were jailed by the Communists, were abducted to the Soviet Union and finally fled and lost their original citizenship.

The institutions of the European Union, especially the European Court of Human Rights and the European Commission are influenced by the Czech government lobby to such an extent that they repeat in their decisions, sometimes word for word, the position of the Czech party.

We consider those two decisions, namely the refusal to accept the complaints of Gratzinger and Polacek by the European Court and the Summary Findings of the European Commission to be ill founded and running against the spirit and letter of laws, international agreements and treaties signed by the Czech Republic.

Our organization is ready to represent in person the cause of the victims of the Czech discriminatory laws before any European body.

All documents written in italics are available from us. Most of them can be sent electronically.

We hereby submit this Petition to the European Parliament in the conviction that Czech laws 87/91, 229/91, 39/2000, 261/2001 and 172/2002 are incompatible with Article 14 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Furthermore we maintain that these laws violate the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Art. 21 (2): “Any discrimination on grounds of nationality shall be prohibited.” We are asking the European Parliament to draw all necessary consequences.

CZECH COORDINATING OFFICE,

International non-governmental Czech organization

European Offices: B. Meiser Straße 6, 91522 Ansbach, Germany

Overseas Offices: 1103-100 Antibes Drive, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M2R 3N1

Wentworth Bldg.62, Univ. of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia

The President of the European Parliament 6. September 2006.

Rue Wiertz

B-1047 Brussels

Petition

Our non-governmental Czech organization, supported by over 450 Czech patrons and by 34 Czech organizations worldwide, is submitting the following petition:

Article 295 of the Treaty Establishing the European Community, which states:

This treaty shall in no way prejudice the rules in Member States governing the system of property ownership

is to be reviewed with respect to its compatibility with other provisions of the same treaty guaranteeing fundamental rights and freedoms. The mentioned article has been used to justify violations of human rights guaranteed not only by the Treaty itself, but also by other international treaties and conventions signed and ratified by the member states, including the Czech Republic. The policies and consequences stemming from the use of article 295 are to be revised and those violating human rights are to be appropriately amended, so as to bring the laws of the member states in compliance with their international treaty obligations.

Article 295 is in conflict with and is being used to sanction the violation of the following human rights and principles:

Treaty Establishing the European Community

(Treaty of Rome 1957)

Article 12

Within the scope of application of this Treaty, and without prejudice to any special provisions contained therein, any discrimination on grounds of nationality shall be prohibited. The Council, acting in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 251, may adopt rules designed to prohibit such discrimination.

Article 13

1. Without prejudice to the other provisions of this Treaty and within the limits of the powers conferred by it upon the Community, the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission and after consulting the European Parliament, may take appropriate action to combat discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation.

2. By way of derogation from paragraph 1, when the Council adopts Community incentive measures, excluding any harmonisation of the laws and regulations of the Member States, to support action taken by the Member States in order to contribute to the achievement of the objectives referred to in paragraph 1, it shall act in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 251.

Charter of Fundamental Rights

Article 21

Non-discrimination

1. Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited.

2. Within the scope of application of the Treaty establishing the European Community and of the Treaty on European Union, and without prejudice to the special provisions of those Treaties, any discrimination on grounds of nationality shall be prohibited.

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

Article 26

All persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to the equal protection of the law. In this respect, the law shall prohibit any discrimination and guarantee to all persons equal and effective protection against discrimination on any ground such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 2.

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 17.

1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.

2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Convention for the Protection of Human Rights

and Fundamental Freedoms.

Article 13

Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in this Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.

Article 14

The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.

Article 17

Nothing in this Convention may be interpreted as implying for any state, group or person any right to engage in any activity or perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein or at their limitation to a greater extent than is provided for in the Convention.

Article 1, Protocol 1

Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions…

The above list is not exhaustive and there may be other treaties with which article 295 is in conflict. The mentioned article sanctions the violation of the very solemn principles proclaimed by the Treaty in which it is included. Article 295 has made possible the discriminatory dispossession of Czech nationals, who lost their Czechoslovak citizenship due to the Treaty of Naturalization concluded with the United States in 1928. We have on record numerous cases in which Article 295 has been used to sanction the infringement of fundamental rights and freedoms. Due to this article the Czech Republic has been able to keep on its books discriminatory laws that violate its international obligations in the area of fundamental rights and freedoms (e.g. Act 87/1991). As a result its citizens are denied recourse in the case of violations such as the illegitimate confiscation of property legally purchased and owned uninterruptedly for decades or of property previously returned to them under the country’s restitution laws. We have ample documentation of such occurrences.

The application of article 295 has allowed member states to violate with impunity the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens of the member states. In consequence, the European Court of Human Rights, in applying the European Convention on Human Rights, has refused to grant citizens of member states the same level of protection of their fundamental rights and freedoms as is granted them by the United Nations Human Rights Committee in applying the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Cases 38645/97 Poláček and 39794/98 Gratzinger admitted by the High Commissioner for Human Rights had previously been rejected by the European Court in spite of the plaintiffs’ request that it come to the same decision as the UNHRC in similar cases. Both the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights stem from the same Universal Declaration of Human Rights and cannot be in conflict.

To this day we did not receive an honest answer to either of these petiions from the Petition Committee of the European Parliament.

Copy: United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

We can send any of the above mentioned documents just for asking.

Czech Coordinating Office, 29. April 2008.

Jan Sammer, Secretary,

1103-100 Antibes Drive,

Toronto, Ontario,

Canada M2R 3N1.

***

CZECH COORDINATING OFFICE,

International non-governmental Czech organization

European Offices: B. Meiser Straße 6, 91522 Ansbach, Germany

Overseas Offices: 1103-100 Antibes Drive, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M2R 3N1

Wentworth Bldg.62, Univ. of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia

Dear Congressman . . May 2, 2008.

Recently we learned that the Czech caucus has been established among the senators and congressmen.

We thank you for being a member of that institution, which, hopefully, will influence the development of democracy in our homeland. Our homeland was an exemplary democracy and juridical state before WW II. Sixty years of first Nazi, then Communist oppression broke the spine of the nation.

We have to apologize for asking you to read the attached 9 pages. This is just a brief survey of the most important facts. Information we have about the subject is immense. For complete report we would need at least 90, possibly 900 pages.

We left out facts about recent illegal expropriations of properties legally purchased or inherited, we did not tell you about the survival of the old communist guard at courts, with the police, secret service or in the parliament.

In this letter we did not want to burden you with nonsensical decisions of the European Court for Human Rights, which have been subsequently reversed by the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

We did not tell you about the documented excuses and lies, by which the Czech Government dodges admonitions and decisions of the UN Human Rights Committee.

We wanted to raise your interest but not to stretch your patience to the limit. We have vast documentation about all these abuses of human rights, about violations of signed and ratified international treaties, about violations of the Czech Constitution and the Helsinki accords.

We can document everything, which we are bringing up in the Survey and in this letter.

Please, show us your interest and ask us for documentation of everything said here.

Your involvement could lead our nation of skilled, intelligent and educated people to become a society with highly developed sense of morality, responsibility and human rights.

Thank you.

Jan Sammer, Secretary,

1103-100 Antibes Drive,

Toronto, Ontario, Canada M2R 3N1

jan.sammer@sympatico.ca

416-665-7324

***

US Senate

Members of the Czech Caucus

List in progress

March 4, 2008

Chairmen

Senator E. Benjamin Nelson (Nebraska) Democrat

Senator George V. Voinovich (Ohio) Republican

Members

Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr. (Pennsylvania) Democrat

Senator Bryan L. Dorgan (North Dakota) Democrat

Senator Dianne Feinstein (California) Democrat

Senator Chuck Grassley (Iowa) Republican

Senator Joseph Lieberman (Connecticut) Independent

Senator Mel Martinez (Florida) Republican

Senator Ted Stevens (Alaska) Republican

US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

MEMBERS OF THE CZECH CAUCUS

List in progress

April 10, 2008

Chairmen

Congressman Joe Barton (Texas 6th) Republican

Congressman Daniel Lipinski (Illinois) Democrat

Congressman Thaddeus G. McCotter (Michigan) Republican

Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher (California) Democrat

Members

Joe Bonner (Alabama 1st)

Michael Conaway (Texas 11th)

Danny Davis (Illinois 7th)

Lincoln Diaz-Balart (Florida 21st)

Mario Diaz-Balart (Florida 25th)

Lloyd Dogget (Texas 25th)

Phil English (Pennsylvania 3rd)

Jeff Fortenberry (Nebraska 1st)

Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas 18th)

Dave Loebsack (Iowa 2nd)

Don Manzullo (Illinois 16th)

Harry Mitchell (Arizona 5th)

Solomon Ortiz (Texas 27th)

Jan Schakowsky (Illinois 9th)

Joe Sestak (Pennsylvania 7th)

John Shimkus (Illinois 19th)

Michael Turner (Ohio 3rd)

Zpátky