The Constitutional Court will comment on the disputes concerning the claim of the Cistercians from Vyšší Brod

Brno – The Constitutional Court (CC) will announce today its decision regarding a group of complaints from the Cistercian Abbey of Vyšší Brod in a dispute over land in the cadastral areas of Vyšší Brod and Frymburk in the Český Krumlov region. The Cistercians regained the properties through church restitution between 2016 and 2018, but later the courts overturned the decision, ruling that the land – confiscated under the post-war Beneš decrees – would not be returned to the order and would remain under the control of the state-owned Forests of the Czech Republic.

The group of constitutional complaints, which has been gradually merged into a single proceeding, concerns 17 similar disputes according to available information. Initially, the Cistercians regained the properties. Subsequently, the Forests of the Czech Republic filed lawsuits with the Regional Court in České Budějovice, which gradually dismissed them. However, the High Court in Prague altered the rulings and determined that the land would not be returned. Subsequent appeals were rejected by the Supreme Court in a series of brief resolutions.

The order believes that both the high court and the highest instance intervened in the Cistercians' right to a fair trial and also in the right to protection of property. According to the Cistercians, both the High Court and the Supreme Court accepted the injustices committed against property by the communist and Nazi regimes when they concluded that the order is not an entitled person under the law on property settlement with churches.

The order did indeed return part of the land to the Forests of the Czech Republic. The State Land Office then initiated the renewal of proceedings concerning some other returned forest lands, for which the Forests of the Czech Republic had originally not filed lawsuits, but it encountered an unfavorable position from the administrative division of the South Bohemian Regional Court as well as the Supreme Administrative Court. According to the administrative courts, the renewal of proceedings solely on the basis that the legal perspective on the application of the restitution exclusion has changed in the meantime is not possible. This particular group of land will likely remain with the Cistercians. The complaints being discussed today concern other parcels.