Prague, Jan 19 (CTK) – Cardinal Dominik Duka, who chairs the Czech Bishops’ Conference (CBK), called on the government in a press release yesterday to return the land, previously seized by the communist regime, to small farmers without any delay.
It amounts to disrespect for ancestors and their offspring that the property, once confiscated by communist farming cooperatives (JZD), still remains unreturned, Duka wrote in the press release sent to CTK.
“The impossibility [for the claimants] to see their rights granted, mainly due to the protracted bankruptcy proceedings of the former JZD’s successors, is a bad signal showing the current condition of democracy and the functioning of the state,” Duka wrote.
Czechoslovak parliament passed a series of restitution laws after the fall of the communist regime. A law from May 1991 defines the ownership of land and other agricultural property with the aim to mitigate some property wrongs inflicted by the communist regime in 1948-1989.
“I declare that I will continue to support the efforts by small farmers for at least a partial remedy of the wrongs caused by the communist regime and the subsequent sluggishness under the democratic Czech Republic,” Duka wrote.
According to the data released by the state, former owners may still claim up to 300,000 hectares of agricultural land.
Since 2006, the state has been regularly offering substitute plots to the restitution claimants to whom their former property could not be returned for various reasons.
However, only less than 20 percent of the offered substitute plots are usually accepted by the claimants.
About 30,000 hectares of land might be returned to churches, mainly the Catholic Church, based on the church restitution law that took effect in 2013.
Churches in the Czech Republic, together with the Federation of Jewish Communities, asked the government for settling all types of restitution claims more quickly in a joint statement in October 2015.
