WUNRN
Czech Republic –
Government Rejects Bill to Compensate Women Victims of Illegal Sterilizations
Czech Minister for Human Rights, Equal
Opportunities and Legislation Jiří Dienstbier prior to the cabinet session on
30 September 2015. (PHOTO: www.vlada.cz)
October 1, 2015 -
Victims of illegal sterilizations perpetrated over decades apparently will not
be receiving compensation from the Czech state according to a proposal
developed by the team of Czech Human Rights Minister Jiří Dienstbier (Czech
Social Democratic Party - ČSSD). Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (ČSSD),
after a nighttime cabinet session, told journalists early this morning that the
Government disagrees with the proposal, but would not give details.
According to the bill,
the women concerned would have been compensated as much as CZK 300 000 (EUR 11
000). Prior to today's meeting, some ministries were already against the
proposal.
The ministries said
victims had been able to sue for compensation in the courts and that it should
be enough that the state has already expressed regret for the incidents and
changed the rules according to which such surgeries are performed. Czech Deputy
Human Rights Minister Martina Štěpánková said yesterday on Czech Television
that objecting that the women concerned should sue is incorrect because the
statute of limitations has expired in most cases.
Štěpánková also
expressed doubts as to whether the communist regime would ever have permitted
court hearings of such cases. Moreover, many social barriers obstructed the
afflicted women's access to the courts.
Without the aid of
nonprofit organizations, most of the forcibly sterilized women have been unable
to figure out how to even bring a case. During the legislative commentary
process prior to yesterday's meeting, several ministries raised objections to
the bill.
The Czech Agriculture
Ministry said the amount of compensation is disproportionately high compared to
compensation paid to victims of the communist regime, who received CZK 100 000
(EUR 4 000). The Czech Finance Ministry was concerned that some cases might
fail to meet the "burden of proof".
The Finance Ministry
also said it would not give the Health Ministry additional money for the work
of the proposed commission to administer compensation requests. Some other
ministries asked for a more precise estimate of the total costs.
As of now, compensation
is estimated at between CZK 79 million and CZK 2.5 billion (EUR 3 million and
EUR 92 million). Štěpánková responded to all those commentaries in yesterday's
interview with Czech Television.
She said the amount of
compensation is based on decisions by both the Czech courts and the European
Court of Human Rights in such cases. She also acknowledged that the
"burden of proof" could be a problem because some of the cases
happened decades ago.
As far as the budget
for compensation was concerned, she explained that it cannot yet be made more
precise because the actual number of illegally sterilized women will not be
clarified until individual applicants begin to come forward. For the time being
only estimated numbers of the women affected are available.
Suspicions of forced
sterilization in the Czech Republic, primarily of Romani women, were brought
forward by the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) in 2004. Dozens of women then
contacted the Czech ombud
Some women have also
successfully sued. Czech Ombud Otakar
Motejl first systematically investigated the issue in 2005.
The Czech Government's
Committee against Torture proposed compensating the victims of forced
sterilization in 2006, and in 2009 the Czech Government issued a general
expression of regret for the illegally-performed surgeries. International
organizations have criticized the Czech Republic because the state has not yet
compensated the victims of these human rights violations.