The Czech Constitutional Court has recently made a significant ruling in a case brought by a resident of Ostrava’s Radvanice-Bartovice district. The woman, who claimed financial compensation for health damage caused by air pollution, was unsuccessful in her initial claim, but the Constitutional Court has now ordered that the case be heard again by the Supreme Court. The woman in question is a resident of a district that has consistently failed to adhere to legal limits of carcinogenic substances in the air, such as benzo(a)pyrene and concentrated dust particles. She argues that she fell ill with lung cancer and that her husband died from the same illness, and as a result, she is demanding compensation of CZK 1.44 million.

The woman argues that after the Czech Republic joined the EU in 2004, the Environment Ministry was obliged to draft plans for improving the air quality, including measures to meet relevant legal limits. However, she claims that this never happened. The case was previously heard by district and regional courts, who agreed with the woman that the Environment Ministry had acted wrongly by failing to adopt an air improvement program. However, the courts dismissed her complaint, stating that she had failed to prove a causal relationship between the state’s inaction and the damage she suffered.

The Constitutional Court’s recent decision to uphold the woman’s objections and return the case to the Supreme Court is a significant development in the case. Frank Bold lawyer Pavel Cerny stated that the Supreme Court should deal with the petition in terms of its content and focus on whether the submitted epidemiological study confirms the causal relationship between the damage to the woman’s health and the state’s wrong actions.

The Moravia-Silesia Region, of which Ostrava is the capital, has long struggled with air pollution, which is influenced by a variety of factors, including local industry, transportation, household heating, and harmful substances carried by wind from nearby Poland. The recent ruling by the Constitutional Court highlights the importance of addressing air pollution and the need for the state to take responsibility for its actions or inactions that contribute to the degradation of air quality.

Article by Prague Forum