I. ÚS 806/23
The Constitutional Court assessed whether the general courts properly addressed the issue of which legal action served as the basis for the nationalisation of the Order’s property after 25 February 1948. In 1948, public authorities expropriated all the complainant’s property through three different simultaneous procedures, and the files indicate that even at the time, authorities were unclear on the exact basis under which the property transferred to the state. The courts, however, are also obliged to examine whether the confiscation procedures complied with the legislation in force at the time or whether they were instead an expression of the arbitrariness of the totalitarian regime, especially considering that the confiscation was based on decrees but occurred only during the relevant period. The case now returns to the general courts.
The complainant is an ecclesiastical legal person that has managed the property of the monastery in Vyšší Brod for nearly eight hundred years. In the period before the Second World War, the complainant was loyal to the Czechoslovak Republic and supported its territorial integrity. Members of the Order opposed the Nazi threat, which led to the Gestapo’s occupation of the monastery before the war’s outbreak, the confiscation of its assets, and the expulsion of the religious community. Some religious members were interned or imprisoned. During the war, the monastery served the needs of the Wehrmacht and as a repository for stolen valuables. After the end of the war, the abbot and several monks began restoring the monastery. Although the complainant's property had been seized during the war due to anti-Nazi activities, and was thus covered by Presidential Decree No. 5/1945 Coll. (on the invalidity of certain property transactions made under duress and on the national administration of property values belonging to Germans, Hungarians, traitors, and collaborators, as well as some organisations and institutions), after 1945, the Ministry of Agriculture attempted to confiscate it. The efforts to take away the complainant's property continued and were completed in the relevant period (after 25 February 1948) and, as a result of a complex and disconnected series of actions, all of the complainant’s property ultimately fell permanently into state ownership. After 1989, with the Order’s activities resumed, the complainant was returned the monastery (or most of it), and in regard to further unreleased assets (forests, fields, ponds), the complainant awaited a future legal regulation, eventually enacted as Act No. 428/2012 Coll. (on Property Settlement with Churches and Religious Societies).
The complainant filed a lawsuit under the Act on Property Settlement with Churches and Religious Societies, seeking recognition of the Czech Republic’s ownership of land that had been unlawfully included in a privatisation project and transferred to one of the other party to the proceedings (a business corporation) in violation of the Land Act. This concerned land that the state expropriated in 1948 without compensation under a revision act, potentially constituting a property injustice. The courts dismissed the complaint, determining that church restitution did not apply to the property in question, thus prioritising the restitution exclusion over the restitution title, concluding that the confiscation had occurred under the decrees. The district court dismissed the complainant’s claim, ruling that neither party was entitled to costs reimbursement. The regional court, in response to the complainant’s appeal, upheld the district court’s decision, modifying only the ruling regarding costs. The Supreme Court dismissed the complainant's appeal on points of law as inadmissible.
The First Panel of the Constitutional Court (with Judge Rapporteur Jaromír Jirsa) upheld the constitutional complaint, concluding that the general courts had violated the complainant’s right to a fair trial.
The fact that the confiscation took place under decrees, but only during the relevant period, does not exempt the general courts from the duty to examine whether the confiscation procedure complied with the applicable legal regulations or constituted an act of totalitarian arbitrariness. In cases of doubt, the courts must apply the in favorem restitutionis principle to ensure that the interpretation of the regulation applied is not unduly strict. This principle, in simplified terms, obliges the state to proceed under restitution laws in accordance with the legitimate interests of individuals whose losses are compensated through restitution legislation.
Thus, in applying restitution laws, one must avoid excessive formalism and instead always consider the specific circumstances. Although in the present case the property of the monastery was seized by the German occupation authorities who took over its administration, following February 1948, the property was confiscated from the original owner anew, on the grounds that the monastery’s administration served wartime efforts. In assessing restitution, a democratic state must not create further injustices but should interpret restitution laws as favourably as possible. Such an approach should be in accordance with the legitimate interests of persons whose harm caused under the totalitarian communist regime is to be at least partially compensated.
Where multiple options for expropriation methods exist (Presidential Decrees No. 12/1945 Coll. and No. 108/1945 Coll., and Act No. 142/1947 Coll., on the Revision of the First Land Reform), it is not permissible to halt the review and decide, without proper investigation, that the property was confiscated solely under the decrees, without assessing whether the decrees were misapplied. Non-compliance with applicable standards, inconsistency, and unpredictability in the actions of state authorities or persons acting on behalf of the state during periods of oppression cannot be interpreted to the detriment of entitled persons. In restitution proceedings, the general courts must primarily consider the values and principles of a democratic state governed by the rule of law. A contrary approach may evoke a sense of “new” injustice and lawlessness in the complainant, who suffered harm under both totalitarian regimes – Nazi in 1938 and Communist after 1948.
Under Article 89(2) of the Constitution, the Constitutional Court’s promulgated judgments are binding on all individuals and state bodies, which are required to apply the Court’s key reasoning in similar cases. The conclusions outlined in judgment file No. I. ÚS 3918/19, concerning property taken away from the complainant through the same procedure (the same administrative actions), were not respected by the general courts in the present case. This was not a similar case but a new assessment of the same decisions as in the referred case.
In the further proceedings, therefore, the task of the general courts will be to clarify under which legal provision the complainant's property was actually confiscated and whether the Constitutional Court had previously ruled substantively on this matter.