The Czech Health Ministry has paid over CZK 188 million in compensation for illegal sterilisations since January 2022, granting CZK 300,000 to 629 women out of 1,296 claims processed, with another 616 claims still pending and around 30 being dealt with in court, ministry spokesman Ondrej Jakob told CTK on Friday.
The Dentons law firm said in a press release that the ministry had awarded compensation to their client after an administrative action and a court decision.
“Between 1966 and 2012, thousands of predominantly Roma women were forced by Czechoslovak and then Czech authorities to sign consent to sterilisation, often without being informed of the subject of their consent, or of all the consequences of such action,” the law firm said.
In 2021, the government adopted a law on compensation for victims.
In the case reported by the law firm on Friday, the ministry originally rejected the woman’s request, and lawyers filed a lawsuit to overturn the decision. The Metropolitan Court in Prague upheld the lawsuit, and the ministry awarded the compensation after reconsideration.
“The ruling of the Metropolitan Court in Prague can be considered a landmark decision, as it is the first in which the court addressed the conditions that had to be met under the then-applicable legislation in order for sterilisation to be considered lawful,” the lawyers said. They said the court concluded that the lack of information on the irreversibility of sterilisation was grounds for awarding compensation.
In July, the Supreme Administrative Court (NSS) also commented on the situation. It said the Health Ministry itself must take active steps in the future to verify whether the applicant for compensation had been subjected to unlawful sterilisation in the past. The court thus rejected the earlier practice of the ministry, which demanded that the women themselves prove the claim. At the same time, the court defined the ministry’s procedure for situations where the applicant’s medical records do not exist or are evidently unreliable.
The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) came forward in 2004 with suspicions of forced sterilisations of mainly Roma women in Czechoslovakia, and later in the Czech Republic. Dozens of women then reported to the ombudsman, and some of them also turned to the courts. The government’s Committee against Torture proposed the introduction of compensation as early as 2006. In 2009, the cabinet apologised for the unlawful interventions. Victims can now apply for compensation under the law from 2022.
