Damages caused by courts of law must not be refunded by citizens.

Damages caused by courts of law must not be refunded by citizens.

Through decisions made by the International Human Rights Court in Strasburg, Czech Republic has many times been condemned to pay indemnities to plaintiffs, owing to illegal and unconstitutional decisions made by judges of general courts /OS, KS, VS, NS/ as well as the Constitutional Court of Czech Republic. According to the media, the amount in question is more than 19 million Czech crowns. The damages were paid from the state budget, to the detriment of all tax payers, who had not caused them.

Their responsibility has no bearing on these illegal sentences of individual judges who had passed the respective verdicts. It is solely the individual judges who are personally responsible for the damage incurred. Each case passed to Strasburg for review is always treated by ten judges, i.e. 1 judge of first instance, OS) KS), then 3 judges of a court of appeal (KS, VS), after that 3 judges of the Supreme Court of Appeal, and 3 judges of the Constitutional Court. If the Strasburg Court rules that, when treating a case by the number of judges mentioned, Czech Republic had infringed upon the Constitution and international treaties and has to repair the damage, it bears witness to an alarming and disastrous way of discharging judicial duties in this country.

Damages caused by judges must not be paid for, by the citizens. Criminal offences perpetrated by judges are not included in the so called judicial independence which, in Czech Republic, is truly unlimited. Figuratively speaking, at a restaurant, no cook serves judges meals prepared from sewage; should he do that, he would have to compensate for the damage. If the judge passed an illegal and unconstitutional verdict on a cook, often even in dereliction of duty, it is this concrete judge alone who should be obliged to repair the damage, not all the tax-payers.

The situation has gone so far that the police refuse to investigate criminal offences perpetrated by judges. At the Ministries of the Interior and Justice, there is a tacit agreement upon the impunity of judges. The police even illegaly cede such accusations of judges to presidents of courts or to the Ministry of Justice, authorities which, according to law, are not participants in penal proceedings. Such participants are the Police, the Attorney General, and the Courts. It even happens that enployees of the administrative branches mentioned, act in collusion and answer evasively, all in a similar way, and by common accord cover up criminal offences perpetrated by judges.

Many citizens, residing in various places of Czech Republic, can support by evidence, instances of such malpractice which have occurred during the last decade /e.g. Hana Rašková and others/. The judges have become a sort of "priviledged perpetrators" exempt from the Penal Code and Penal Laws. In addition, criminal offences perpetrated by judges during their working hours are remunerated by the State in excess of the standard. Nowhere else in the world do judges enjoy such privileges. In the long run, this situation is untenable. It is necessary to present these problems for public debate and solve them without delay.

Dr. Marta Chovancová , 1.1.2007 Czech Republic