Petition about Discrimination on the Basis of Nationality.

Anglický originál

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Czech Coordinating Office

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International non-governmental Czech organization

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

Mauritslaan 35, 3454 XR De Meern, Netherlands,

Overseas Office: 1103-100 Antibes Drive, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M2R 3N1 Tel. 416-665-7324, 

 

Fax 416-665-4664 Web page: http://www.czechoffice.org, e-mail: jan.sammer@sympatico.ca

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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, Netherlans 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.

 

 

Name (Jméno): ......................................................

 

 

Occupation: (Zaměstnání) .......................................................

 

 

Address: (Bydliště) ...................................................

 

 

Nationality: (občanství) .............................................

 

 

Signature: (Podpis) .....................................................

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