Dear ladies and gentlemen,
I appear here as a delegate of three civic associations - non-profit organizations, namely the Environmental Defense Civic Action, Bohemian Green ways and the Ancient Monuments Community of Český Krumlov.
I would like you to share with me some of the experience we have acquired in the past three years by participating in a number of administrative proceedings, in discussing our initiatives, petitions and complaints addressed to the public administration particularly in Prague, but in other cities as well.
In the last years, the Czech public and municipal bodies engaged in the area of development, environmental protection and conservation of historical monuments have been repeatedly invading the right to information and participation of the general public in administrative and other public proceedings. Yet, the Czech Republic belongs among the signatories of the Aarhuss Convention that proclaimed the right of access to information, to participation of general public in decision-making and to legal protection in environmental related issues.
In spite of the fact that the law defines cultural monuments as being part of the environment, their protection is lacking the kind of democratic mechanisms such as the right of the public to due and timely information on any intended interference with the monuments and their milieu, and the right of civic associations to take part in any respective proceedings. Draft of the new Act on the protection of historical monuments does not take the enforcement of those rights into account. The absence of public control of the activities of administrative bodies results in frequent damages to these monuments as a consequence of giving priority to commercial interests and allows spreading of corruption. Participation in administrative proceedings is being denied even to the govermental institutions for historical monument protection, which do provide professional source documents, but whom the administrative bodies often disregard in their decision-making.
Civic associations that succeed to take part in administrative proceedings in compliance with the law on environmental protection and gain thereby full process rights, may express their opinion regarding the subject matter of the proceeding, submit their own comments and views for example to a proposed structure. Administrative bodies frequently ignore such comments. The last venue citizens are often left with, is to consistently monitor whether the officials abide by the laws in force. In spite of the participants’ efforts to at least control the legitimacy, illegitimate decisions are often adopted. After the courts of justice reconsider the legitimacy of an administrative proceeding, it is usually too late. Final verdict with legal force is often passed for instance after a monument has been pulled down or when a supermarket dominates a park where citizens do not want it or when a bulky and architectonically inappropriate structure spoils the character of the landscape.
The general courts do not even temporarily arrest the obvious illegalities in administrative proceedings, until all levels of appeal in these proceedings are exhausted. Such policy, however, counts on the existence of administrative courts. But these have not been willfully established by already third political representation.
In case of unconstitutionality of acts or their individual provisions, a Czech citizen or a legalbody cannot appeal to the Constitutional Court. This right is reserved solely to the members of the Parliament and the President. To a citizen it is acknowledged only when s/he is directly affected, i.e. disadvantaged by the appurtenant law.
Particular examples of contempt of citizens’ participation in public proceedings of administrative bodies are:
Petr Štěpánek, Václav Drbohlav and Zbyněk Dočkal on behalf of the environmental and preservationists organizations