The handling of claims for compensation for unlawful sterilizations is accompanied by errors at the Ministry of Health, the Ombudsman has found

The Public Defender of Rights Stanislav Křeček reviewed the Ministry of Health's procedures on his own initiative. He launched the investigation last year based on complaints from more than 30 women seeking compensation for illegal sterilizations. In this systemic investigation, he focused on the complaint handling process, i.e. how the Ministry handles complaints formally. The substantive issues are dealt with in investigations of individual complainants' cases.

According to the Ombudsman, the Ministry did not prepare sufficiently for the decision-making process on compensation claims. By failing to process applications for compensation for unlawful sterilizations within the statutory time limit, the Ministry has been acting in breach of the legislation and violating the basic principles of administrative bodies as well as the principles of good administration, namely the principle of timeliness. The applicants' exceedingly lengthy waiting for a decision on their application for compensation only prolongs unnecessarily their already protracted wait for recognition of the State's misconduct.

The Ombudsman pointed out that the applicants are mostly elderly. Their main concern is to acknowledge the State for having allowed such violations of the law in the past, the consequences of which they have borne for their entire lives. "The sooner their application is processed, the shorter their exposure to uncertainty will be. There are already cases of applicants who died while their claims for compensation were being processed," the Ombudsman stressed.

"I therefore suggest that the Ministry should consider whether in exceptional cases, for example, for applicants of advanced age or those with serious life-threatening diagnoses, it could process their applications not according to the date of receipt but in priority to others. This procedure would be particularly helpful in cases where, after a claimant's application for compensation has been rejected, she has successfully defended herself in an administrative action, the court has overturned the Minister's decision and the Ministry must therefore consider the application again," said Stanislav Křeček. He also criticized the Ministry for unfriendly communication. The applicants often had to deal with the fact that they were unable to reach officials over the phone and did not even receive replies to their e-mails.

However, the Ombudsman appreciated that the Ministry had already modified and clarified the information provided to applicants about their rights. In particular, it had added information that they could use other evidence than medical records, such as testimony from relatives and friends or diary entries, to prove their claim for compensation.

The ombudsman has now suggested the Ministry to add information to the instructions to the applicants that if their application is rejected, they can reapply for compensation and, if necessary, provide additional evidence. Similarly, the Ombudsman believes that the Ministry should emphasise in the instruction that when submitting an appeal by e-mail without a guaranteed electronic signature, applicants must complete their submission with a handwritten signature within five days. He has come across a case where a compensation claimant communicated with the Ministry by e-mail all the time, and because she did not provide the handwritten signature in time, the Minister rejected her appeal.

The first ombudsman, Otakar Motejl, drew attention to cases of unlawful sterilizations of mainly Roma women in 2005. After an extensive investigation, he recommended the government to adopt rules for compensating those who had been unlawfully sterilized. This did not happen until 16 years later. Under a special law, people who were unlawfully sterilized between 1966 and 2012 can apply for compensation from 2022 until January 1, 2025.