Found at the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic No. 122 / 1996 Coll.

Motion denied.

On 2 November 1995, the Constitutional Court received a constitutional complaint from Ms A. P., by which the complainant sought the annulment of the decision of the Supreme Court in Prague of 13 October 1995, No 7 A 744 / 95-14, which dismissed her appeal against the decision of the Czech Social Security Administration regarding the non-recognition of one-off compensation under Act No. 217 / 1994 Coll. This complaint was accompanied by an application for annulment of the provisions of § 3 (1) (b) of Act No. 217 / 1994 Coll., in the part expressed in the words "whose marriage to the disabled citizen existed at the time of his disability 'and in the part expressed in the words" from the date of the effectiveness of the Act'.

In view of the finding that the contested provisions of the Law cited were applied in both the administrative decisions and in the decisions of the Court which are challenged by the Constitutional Complaints themselves, and that therefore the conditions of § 74 of Act No. 182 / 1993 Coll., on the Constitutional Court, IV.

In the appellant's view, the valid version of Act No. 217 / 1994 Coll., on the granting of a lump sum of money to certain victims of Nazi persecution, namely the provision of § 3 (1) (b) of the Inequality of citizens in dignity and rights and does not respect the prohibition of discrimination. It therefore runs counter to Articles 1 and 3 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and of Article 26 of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The basis for this claim is that the law requires the existence of a marriage with a disabled citizen at the time of his disability, and thus forgets that in certain areas of the Czech Republic today, stricter regulations and more cruel germanization apply. This was also the case in Teschen, which was incorporated into the German Empire and where other regulations applied. Thus, those persons who could not marry as a result of these facts are excluded from the group of beneficiaries. This is evidenced by her own story, when she had to ask permission to marry J.P., who was Polish, and when, in fact, this request made in March 1942 to the German authorities became a reason for persecution. In the negotiation of the marriage permit, J. P. rejected the "application to the Germans," and this resulted in both of them being imprisoned in Teschen instead of handling the request. The complainant, who had been born a child in the meantime, was released after a month, but the child's kind and father ended up in a concentration camp in Auschwitz. He returned from there on 6 June 1945 severely ill, yet on 30 June 1945 there was a marriage, which was prevented during the occupation by regulations applied in the territory of Teschen. The marriage lasted until January 7th, 1993, when J. P. died.

The appellant notes that although the legislature in the preamble to Act No 217 / 1994 Coll. states that it is aware of the impossibility of alleviating all the suffering caused by Nazi persecution to the citizens of the Czech Republic, this law cannot be interpreted in such a way that the circle of persons to whom compensation is to be granted will be further narrowed. In the view of the appellant and the Supreme Court in Prague, when he found in the statement of his judgment that the appellant's situation deserved compensation, the absence of any provision to remove the hardness of the law did not allow the court or administrative authority to grant entitlement. In this connection, the complainant also invokes Decision R 11 / 92 Reports of the resolutions and findings of the Constitutional Court of the CSFR, the conclusions of which were also drawn by the Constitutional Court in a finding published under No 132 / 1994 Coll., which implies that if the State grants a group less benefits than others, it can do so only in the public interest and for the public good. This inequality was highlighted by the amendments made by Act No 77 / 1995 Coll., which allowed the transfer of rights to cash benefits to beneficiaries, which in consequence means that these persons are favoured against widows and widower after disabled citizens whose marriage did not exist at the time of disability, i.e. against those who felt more directly the consequences of Nazi persecution. The complainant considers that the very existence of a marriage with a disabled citizen is sufficient grounds for compensation and therefore proposes deleting the provision "whose marriage with a disabled spouse existed at the time of the disability '. At the same time, the complainant proposes to abolish part of the provision of Section 5 (2) of Law No 217 / 1994 Coll. expressed in the words" from the date of application of that law', thereby allowing persons whose claim is only established by the Constitutional Court to claim their claims (in this connection it also points to the finding of the Constitutional Court of Pl. ÚS 3 / 94, paragraph 2, of 12 July 1994).

In a statement by the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic on 2 February 1996, signed by the President of the Chamber by PhDr. Milan Uhdem, it is stated that the Czech Republic cannot carry out the assistance of victims of Nazi persecution as they deserve. In particular, for financial reasons, certain lump sums have been granted to a limited number of persons and to a limited extent in the form of a humanitarian gesture. At the same time, the area of the affected was defined in such a way as to include, in particular, those citizens who were particularly affected. Nor can the extension of the range of recipients of this financial assistance affect all cases of Nazi persecution, and there are always many cases and specific fates that would also justify the granting of financial assistance. For these reasons, the legislature considers that the contested provisions do not conflict with the constitutional order of the Czech Republic or with the international treaties by which the Czech Republic is bound. The Act was approved by the necessary majority of Members on 2 November 1994, signed by the relevant constitutional authorities and duly declared. In doing so, the legislature acted in the belief that this law was in line with the Constitution of the Czech Republic and our legal order.

Under Act No. 217 / 1994 Coll., as amended by Act No. 77 / 1995 Coll., two groups of beneficiaries are entitled to a lump sum. The first group represents the disability itself, on condition that they are citizens of the Czech Republic at the date of application of this law and that they have not been compensated by another State until that date for the same disability. The second group of beneficiaries are survivors of the disabled. This group is divided into three sub-groups. The first is the demands of the widows and widows of the affected citizens who survived the imprisonment. The condition is that marriage to the disabled existed at the time of disability and lasted until the day of death of the disabled. The conclusion of another marriage after the deceased has no effect on the claim. The condition is the Czech citizenship of an authorised person on the effective date of the law, i.e. on 1 December 1994. The second subgroup includes the entitlements of widows and widows after those affected who have been executed or died in prison. Here, too, the existence of marriage is required at the time of death and the existence of citizenship of the Czech Republic of the survivor on 1 December 1994. The third subgroup then represents the claims of orphans by persons executed or killed in prison who, at the date of their death, did not reach the age of 18, and the marriage of parents is irrelevant. An orphan for this purpose shall be considered both an adopted and a disaster. Here, too, citizenship of the Czech Republic is required with a creditor on 1 December 1994.

It can be seen as at the heart of the proposal that a breach of the principle of equality was committed by the legislator by not granting the same advantage (i.e. financial satisfaction) to all persons who were subjected to Nazi persecution on an equal or similar scale. This inequality is seen in the fact that the use of the institution of marriage and its duration at the time of persecution as a criterion for determining the beneficiaries in Article 3 (1) (b) of Law No 217 / 1994 Coll. excludes from the right those persons who were in a virtually identical situation, but who could not or could not have been married, even for reasons of subjective but for objective impossibility of marriage.

The Constitutional Court takes the view that Law No 217 / 1994 Coll. had to use some criterion to define the personal scope of the law, namely to determine the bodies entitled to receive certain benefits. In particular, the legislature has logically included in the list of eligible entities those who have been directly affected by the specified suffering. These entities the law calls disabled persons. The Constitutional Court considers that even if, for various reasons, the legislator were limited to those persons, it would be difficult to see inequality in such a definition. However, the legislature has chosen to extend the authorised entities to persons for whom it considers that the persecution which has been conducted directly against the disabled has also been affected in a significant way. Here, the legislator was either able to use civil law institutes (especially family and inheritance) or could enact an individual assessment of each particular case in administrative proceedings, or possibly could combine these in some way, for example, by authorising the administrative authority to take a different approach in order to eliminate the so-called hardness of the law. For the Act under consideration, the legislator opted for the first option and extended the personal scope of the regulation to include other entities. In doing so, he identified as a criterion the closest relations between family and family, together with the condition that they existed at the time of the disability.

The fundamental question is whether inequality can be argued where the law provides for the same conditions of entitlement for all entities which can be included in the personal scope of the law. In the view of the Constitutional Court, this is not the case, as inequality could only be the case if a group of persons had to fulfil an additional (special) condition for inclusion. However, the provisions of Section 3 of the Act lay down the same conditions for all widows, widows and orphans, i.e. for all beneficiaries. If the application also mentions the finding of the Constitutional Court concerning Act No. 87 / 1991 Coll., on extrajudicial rehabilitation, (Pl. ÚS 3 / 94 of 12.7.1994), it should be noted that in this case it was a situation where the Constitutional Court did not take the view that perhaps the legislator should be limited in defining the entities to which the regulation applies, but when it considered that the personal extent of the restitution standard had been narrowed by the supplementary criterion of permanent residence. However, in the case under consideration, the condition of the existence of marriage at the time of disability does not have such a differentiation character, but forms part of the definition of beneficiaries. The fact that this is the case also follows from the fact that the basis for determining the personal scope of Act No 217 / 1994 Coll. is the compensation of the persons affected, while other entities merely derive their status and rights from them. The fact that the legislator may have acted differently, or possibly to allow in some cases (such as the appellant's case) the administrative body to remove the hardness of the law, cannot in itself be regarded as an advantage or disadvantage for a particular group of citizens, even if the Constitutional Court considered that such a provision was appropriate in the law.

For the reasons set out above, the Constitutional Court therefore rejected the application to abolish part of the provision of § 3 (1) (b) and § 5 (2) of Act No 217 / 1994 Coll., to grant a single sum of cash to certain victims of Nazi persecution, as amended by Act No 77 / 1995 Coll.