Czech Health Ministry should have decided compensation request for unlawful sterilization in 60 days but the applicant waited 16 months, ombudsman has reviewed the case
A woman who applied for compensation for her illegal sterilization should have received a response from the Health Ministry within 60 days but waited 16 months for it instead. The case has been reviewed by the Public Defender of Rights (the ombudsman), Stanislav Křeček, to whom the woman complained.
The case is mentioned in the list of the ombudsman’s opinions. The ministry is excusing its delays regarding such compensation requests by saying that while the number of requests is high, the number of staffers to work on them is small.
“By investigating this case, I have concluded that the ministry erred by not making a decision on the request of the complainant for compensation for her illegal sterilization within 60 days of opening that proceeding,” the ombudsman said. The woman filed her request for compensation in April 2023 and the ministry did not respond to ask for her medical records until July 2023.
In May 2024 the woman called the ministry and confirmed that no decision had been issued in her case. The ministry subsequently told the ombudsman that it rendered a decision in the complainant’s case on 20 August 2024 and that it took effect in September 2024.
Under the terms of the compensation law, the ministry is meant to decide whether to compensate applicants or not within 60 days. “I do acknowledge that this 60-day deadline established by the compensation law is what is termed a procedural deadline and that the law does not imply, for instance, that failure to meet the deadline renders the decision illegal. However, I am warning that if a proceedings takes a long time, the participants can request proportionate compensation for the non-pecuniary damage caused by the unreasonable length of the administrative proceedings,” Křeček said.
The ombudsman has already repeatedly stated that the compensation procedure for the unlawful sterilizations has involved ministerial misconduct. The ministry has proved unable to process requests within the deadline established by law, for instance.
The ministry has excused the delays by alleging that the number of requests is “significant”, the number of staffers is small, that the requests contain “flaws”, and that ambiguous cases have necessitated expert evaluations of medical records. At the beginning of January, when the deadline to apply expired, the Health Ministry said it had received a total of 2,266 applications for compensation for illegal sterilizations since the procedure opened.
Requests for compensation could be submitted starting in 2022, and many new requests were submitted before the expiration of the deadline at the start of this year. When the compensation law was adopted, experts estimated that roughly 400 women would be involved.
In 1971, the Czechoslovak Health Ministry published a decree on sterilization specifying the terms under which applicants could access such surgery. In 1979, the state made it possible to financially motivate women to undergo the surgery.
The last recorded case of an illegal sterilization in the Czech Republic is from 2007. The European Roma Rights Centre raised suspicions in 2004 that primarily Romani women were being forcibly sterilized.
Dozens of women then applied to the ombudsman and some sued in court. The victims have more recently been able to apply for compensation between 2022 and the end of 2024.
Politicians agree it is necessary to extend the procedure by another two years. The Chamber of Deputies should vote on such a proposal in the near future.
