Czech Justice Minister and Czech MP Decroix submit bill to extend the compensation law for forced sterilizations, Commissioner Fuková welcomes the move
The deadline by which to request compensation for illegal sterilization could be extended by two years. Czech Justice Minister Pavel Blažek and Czech MP Eva Decroix (both from the Civic Democratic Party - ODS) have submitted a bill to extend the life of the compensation law as part of the Government's bill to amend the Labor Code.
Deputy Health Minister Václav Pláteník and Czech Government Commissioner for Roma Minority Affairs Lucie Fuková informed journalists of the news during a press conference following a session of the Czech Government Council for Roma Minority Affairs held at the headquarters of the Public Defender of Rights in Brno. The compensation law was originally set to expire at the end of this year.
The Health Ministry has received 2,088 requests for compensation, 1,522 of which have been processed. So far 706 requests have been granted while 566 are still being decided.
The original estimate was that approximately 400 persons would apply for compensation for their forced sterilizations. The ministry has rejected some requests and has not managed to decide others within the 60-day timeframe required by the law.
“We have agreed that it is appropriate to extend the deadline by which women can request compensation for this wrongdoing. Exponentially more requests came to us than the lawmakers originally anticipated. We did not manage to process them due to the small number of staffers working on this,” Pláteník said.
The Deputy Health Minister added that the ministry owes the women an apology for this. Human rights defenders and Romani organizations have repeatedly complained that the legally-established deadline for processing the requests is not being met and that evidence other than original medical records is not being recognized by the ministry.
The Public Defender of Rights (the ombudsman) has been criticizing the ministry for the same thing. According to ombudsman Stanislav Křeček and Fuková, the extension of the law would give hope to women whose requests have been rejected or who are still waiting for a decision.
“This especially makes sense for those women whom the state caused a great obstacle with regard to their compensation by shredding their medical records,” Křeček said. According to the ombudsman, approximately 500 rejected requests and hundreds of suspended proceedings will be affected by the extension of the law.
Thanks to a decision by the Supreme Administrative Court, the state should approach these requests differently. “The court provided instructions to the ministry on how to assess the requests of women whose original medical records no longer exist,” Fuková said.
“The intention of the law to compensate unlawful sterilizations was to atone for the wrongs of the past and apologize for the injustices which have affected not just thousands of women, but also their families and loved ones. However, at this moment the women are not enjoying equal opportunities to request compensation. Our aim is to give applicants who do not receive a decision from the ministry this year an opportunity to reapply, just like all the other applicants who have been able to submit their requests more than once, add to them or amend them. The entire process of the administrative proceedings has simply taken too long,” Fuková said in a press release sent to news server Romea.cz.
“I very much welcome the initiative of Justice Minister Pavel Blažek and Eva Decroix, who submitted an amendment to make it possible to request compensation for illegal sterilization for another two years. Prime Minister Petr Fiala also expressed support for this idea during a previous session of the Council for Roma Minority Affairs on 14 November 2024. I believe this bill is also being welcomed and supported by the author of Act no. 297/2021, Coll., Helena Válková and the opposition,” Fuková said.
“This initiative is a continuation of our collaboration to adopt a definition of antigypsyism this April,” Fuková concluded. The eventual extension is also being welcomed by Czech Government Human Rights Commissioner Klára Šimáčková Laurenčíková.
The Czech Government Council for Roma Minority Affairs adopted the following resolution:
The Council takes note of the 17 September 2024 Notification of the Public Defender of Rights to the Government of the Czech Republic about the Health Ministry’s systemic deficiencies, unlawful administrative practices, inaction and failure to respect the case law of the administrative courts when executing the agenda of compensating illegal sterilizations under Act no. 297/2021, Coll., recommends the Health Ministry undertake the steps proposed by the Public Defender of Rights and recommends the Government propose to extend the deadline by which to claim one-time compensation by at least one year.
“The processing of these requests in particular has involved long delays from the start and many women have not received the compensation due them through no fault of their own,” the Czech Government Human Rights Commissioner noted. According to the Deputy Health Minister, it is unclear when the lawmakers will discuss extending the life of the compensation law.
“We would need the amendment to apply as of the new year, though,” the Deputy Health Minister said. Victims have been able to apply for compensation under this law since 2022.
Women who underwent such surgery between 1 July 1966 and 31 March 2012 without making the decision to do so freely and without being informed as to its repercussions can get CZK 300,000 [EUR 12,000] from the state. Those attending today’s session of the Czech Government Council for Roma Minority Affairs agreed that the issue of compensation should have been handled by the Office of the Government, for instance.
“The Office of the Government has the capacity and knowledge to do this well,” the Deputy Health Minister argued. The ombudsman also said it had not been appropriate to entrust the Health Ministry with implementing the compensation law.
“The ministry has to investigate the medical records. People were unable to submit them, though. The ministry got into a very complicated situation,” the ombudsman said.
Whether a different entity will decide compensation requests in the future will be the subject of further discussion. The systematic sterilizations were introduced by a 1971 Health Ministry directive.
In 1973, the state also made it possible to financially motivate women to undergo sterilization. In 1978 the Charter 77 dissident group published a samizdat document criticizing the position of Romani people in society, where sterilizations being performed under such pressure were first mentioned.
Suspicions that the forced sterilizations of Romani women in particular were persisting were raised in 2004 by the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC). Dozens of women then appealed to the ombudsman and some also sued in court.
The Czech Government’s Committee against Torture proposed compensating these people in 2006. In 2009 a caretaker cabinet apologized for the illegal surgeries.
