In order to define the range of relations established by the new regime after the Velvet Revolution, we need to clarify who was able to get the economy moving under the new regime. In other words, we need to clarify who had the money with which to build something economically relevant in the early 1990s. First of all, in chapter zero we characterized a group of bailers and similar elements who had not only initial capital but also linguistic and business knowledge and skills. Another disposer with more capital was the banks, who are again referred to in those passages in the book dealing with situations where someone tried to short their funds to their own advantage. Next to them, however, there quickly arose a layer of restitutionists, which is the subject of this chapter.
The word “restitution” comes from the Latin “restitutio” (restoration). It is a legal term for the return of property that has been taken from someone or confiscated. In the context of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, restitution refers primarily to property that was confiscated by the communist regime between 1948 and 1989. Thus, restitution in the Czech Republic was – and in part still is – a legal process introduced after the fall of communism with the aim of restoring property rights to those who were unjustly deprived of them during the communist era on the basis of the legislation in force at the time. This process was implemented on the basis of a series of post-Cold War laws based on democratic principles and the rule of law in general. Leaving aside legal theory, the restitution process was based on the theory that what was stolen in the past should be returned in some form to the original owner or his descendant.
The objectives of the restitution process were multifaceted and included both the redress of the historical injustices described above and the promotion of private property.
After the fall of communism in 1989, the Czech Republic witnessed fundamental changes in its political and economic system. With the advent of democracy and a market economy, the restitution process began as part of wider reforms. The communist regime made significant inroads into the property rights of citizens, confiscating property from churches, businessmen and families. The restitution process was therefore a necessary step towards restoring standard legal relations.
A legal point
For Czechoslovak legislation, the decisive period for the return of property that was nationalised, confiscated or otherwise unlawfully alienated was set between 25 February 1948 and 1 January 1990.
Just as the process of nationalization or the otherwise named process of expropriation of private property in favour of the state itself or through collectivization mechanisms into the ownership of a socialist organization in its various forms was a very complex and multifaceted process, so was the method of returning property to its original owners. In a number of cases, even the procedure outlined was subsequently changed many times, and even the new changes made were subject to further alterations. The Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic also intervened in the process, which significantly shifted the set rules to alleviate the persisting injustices.
Below we divide the restitution process into four directions:
1. Act No. 119/1990 Coll., on judicial rehabilitation, sought to redress the wrongs caused by court decisions which resulted in the imposition of the penalty of forfeiture of property in particular. Following the annulment of that decision, the Act, which came into force on 1 July 1990, started the effective restitution of the property thus stolen from the restitutionists.
It does not hurt to see some of the provisions in their original wording:
Ҥ 1
Purpose of the Act
(1) The purpose of the Act is to overturn judicial convictions for acts that the Act criminalizes in contravention of the principles of a democratic society respecting civil political rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and expressed in international documents and international legal norms, to allow for the prompt review of the cases of persons so wrongfully convicted as a result of violations of the law in the criminal justice sector, to eliminate disproportionate harshness in the application of repression, to ensure that persons wrongfully convicted receive social rehabilitation and adequate material compensation, and to allow for the consequences of the illegality found to be drawn from the consequences against persons who knowingly or flagrantly violated the applicable laws.”
2. Act No. 87/1991 Coll., on out-of-court rehabilitation and Act No. 229/1991 Coll., on the regulation of property relations to land and other agricultural property, settled relations with natural persons whose property had been expropriated by the state by various decisions, and obliged persons were obliged to hand over this property. The difference between the two laws was whether the property in question was agricultural property or not. In both cases, there were numerous changes to the regime and the intervention of the Constitutional Court.
3. Act No. 403/1990 Coll., on the mitigation of the consequences of certain property injustices, returned tenement houses, inns, hotels, shops or workshops to the ownership of the original owners, thus transferring the formerly prosperous economic units back to the families of the original owners.
4. Act No. 298/1990 Coll., on the regulation of certain property relations between religious orders and congregations and the Archbishopric of Olomouc, started the process of ecclesiastical restitution, only to be stalled for nearly a quarter of a century. It was only with effect from 1 January 2013 that the process of the rest of ecclesiastical restitution, i.e. the return of property to parishes and the establishment of financial compensation for property that could not be returned, got underway. This was done by Act No. 428/2012 Coll., on Property Settlement with Churches and Religious Societies and on Amendments to Certain Acts. It is not without interest that the political establishment, led by Andrej Babiš, i.e. the agent of Bures, has tried to significantly distort this process and, with effect from 1 January 2020, to introduce additional taxation of part of the state benefits. Fortunately, the Constitutional Court fulfilled its predicted role in October 2019 and put a stop to this populist venture. However, the process of settling with churches and religious societies will take decades more, and the tug-of-war with many families who have managed their ancestral property for hundreds of years is unlikely to end in the lifetime of any reader of this book.
The biggest restitution scandals
Marta Chadimová and the presidential pardon
The case of Marta Chadimová represents one of the key events that reflect the complications and controversies associated with restitution in the Czech Republic against the backdrop of the unfortunate political intervention of President Václav Havel.
At the beginning of the 1990s, someone forged entries in land registers from the pre-war period. On the basis of these forged records, Marta Chadima, the wife of the Chartist Mikoláš Chadima, tried to seize the properties. The state enterprise responsible for the management of this property even concluded an extradition agreement with Chadimová at the beginning of 1992. The civil dispute with the state over the house and gardens on Loretánské náměstí, which Chadimová had acquired in restitution in the early 1990s after years of legal wrangling, ended clearly: ‘The agreement on the surrender of the property, the subject of which was house no. 102 with plot no. Hradčany, which was concluded on 27 January 1992 by Bytový podnik Praha 1, state enterprise and Marta Chadimová, as the beneficiary… and it is determined that the Czech Republic is the owner of house no. 102 built on plot no. 184 and plot no. 184 in the municipality of Prague, in the cadastral area of Hradčany.”
In response to the available evidence that the documents on which the restitution was based were forged, Marta Chadimová was prosecuted for the crime of fraud. From the outset, Chadimova maintained that she was innocent and that the coincidence of circumstances leading to her obtaining the property on the basis of the forged records was a kind of conspiracy against her. Due to various delays and to ensure the smooth conduct of the trial, the court at that time repeatedly ordered Chadimova to be remanded in custody. Expressing our own opinion, the evidence was overwhelmingly conclusive to conclude that the documents leading to the restitution were clearly forged, and quite amateurishly at that. The evidence, however, had to convict Chadimova that the deeds were forged by her or by someone close to her and that she knew of this fact. If proven guilty, she could spend up to 12 years in prison.
And it was precisely in a situation where the verdict, according to many experts a damning one, was coming down, that then-President Václav Havel stepped in. He pardoned Chadimová. However, the defendant did not accept it, so although she could not go to prison if found guilty, the proceedings were to continue. She accepted the pardon some eight years later.
As a result, a woman who tried to get hold of property worth hundreds of millions of dollars, relying on false evidence, ended up running free and had to return the property, so the scam failed. However, the whole case has very deeply affected the perception of the law and the impartiality of justice by a large section of the citizens of our country. The knowledge that crooks and thieves indiscriminately belong behind bars has turned into an aftertaste of disillusionment that this does not apply to the dissident friends of President Havel. Chadim’s husband Mikoláš had signed Charter 77.
The Bečvář estate and the officials at the land registry
Probably the most extensive case of restitution fraud, or perhaps fraud, concerned land confiscated by the communist regime from the Bečvář family in Prague’s Žižkov and Strašnice districts. It was a question of who would get the super-lucrative properties or their similarly lucrative replacements from the late Jan Mario and Josef Bečvář and their sister in the early 1990s. The real estate was claimed by the now deceased Emilie Bednářová (born 1924), who was identified as the niece of Jan Maria Bečvář and his brother Josef Bečvář. In several decisions from 2009 to 2012, Land Office officials made a fatal mistake when they awarded compensation to Mrs Bednářová for the land of Jan Maria Bečvář, which was worth billions of crowns. The Land Office also issued other properties to other heirs of Bečvář’s sister.
However, Bednářová was entitled only to the real estate of the aforementioned Josef, because he had mentioned the restituent in his will.
Eva Benešová, the former director of the office under whose authority the restitution process fell, her successor Petr Chmelík and Jan Horák, a professional officer, later sat in the dock. According to the prosecution, they neglected their duties and did not sufficiently address the question of whether the applicant was entitled to the land. The officials faced up to 12 years in prison for abuse of official authority. The court files then circulated for many years through the various instances of the Czech judiciary with varying results. In the end, the top officials were only given suspended sentences. The hand of the law fell hardest on today’s pensioner Horák, who left the court with a five-year prison sentence.
