League of Human Rights | Annual Report | 2012

annual report | 2012
the league of human rights

introduction
to slow down for a while
For many of us the clear feature of the present time is lack of time while we
attempt to meet the pilling deadlines and commitments. It is more and more
difficult to slow down for a while and think why we actually do what we do.
In the past year The League of Human Rights celebrated the 10th anniversary.
The time has come to reflect but also to realize what values connect us and what
we want to achieve. We have been reassured in our belief that we cannot achieve
any real changes without involvement of others and that our goal is not only to win
law suits for the weaker or to assert legal changes to prevent violation of freedoms.
Our mission is also to point at values of freedom, justice and mutual respect upon
which our society is built, and to show a path of how to fight for their preservation
and expansion.
In year 2012 we have begun two main activities within this context. One is a project
Anyone Can Be a Hero through which we already collected over a hundred stories
of people who have fought for the values they stand for and overcame many an
obstacle. The second one is social company LLP Vision. We have established the
company based on our decision to apply our knowledge and experience through
paid seminars and trainings. The profit from the business will help to provide publicly
profitable activities led by the League. The creation of a separate subject was
motivated by the belief that the model of social company is still unknown in the
Czech Republic. The example of Teo Babuna, who I had the honor of meeting two
years ago in the USA, shows that the road to socially responsible activities does not
have to lead only in direction of non-profitable organizations. For many years he
successfully traded between the USA, Cuba and the Caribbean. After reading a book
by Bob Buford, The Halftime, he experienced a moment of great inspiration and
decided to apply its ideas in real life. He sold most of his companies and established
the Americas Relief Team, which delivers humanitarian aid into places affected by
natural disasters.
Anyone can be a hero. It is only a matter of slowing down for a while and realizing
that everyone has the chance to fulfill the best in us.
David Zahumenský, the head of The League of Human Rights.
the league of human rights
We are a non-profit organization which defends rights and freedoms of all people.
We help people to know their rights and to actively enforce them. We win lawsuits
of the weaker ones, produce expert analyses and system recommendations, but we
also publish comprehensible law guides for the public. We push through system
changes, which improve the quality of life in the Czech Republic.
author: League archive

patients’ rights
Our free law clinic for patients noted
the 3000th question. The clinic visit
rate on our web page ferovannemocnice.cz
has been increasing ever since its
creation in 2006. On average 1100 people
visit the page daily and throughout
the last year we recorded approximately
185 thousand unique users.
The regional court in Brno has for the
second time ruled in favor of a young
woman who was involuntarily moved
to a hospital after giving birth
at home. A very precise ruling pointed
at an unsatisfactory knowledge of doctors
of patients’ rights – predominantly
about the right to decide care and the
right to personal freedom.
We have also approached the Constitutional
Court with a complaint on limiting
women’s right to choose a birth
place outside a hospital. The Court has
rejected the complaint, however it
made clear that factually the complaint
could be reasonable and asked the
state to lead a serious discussion on the
matter. We have therefore approached
the European Court for Human Rights.
The Highest Court has accepted the
complaint by the League that a compensation
of 150 thousand Czech
crowns for an unauthorized ovaries
removal is insufficient. According to
the ruling courts should in the future
take more into account the significance
of compensation as a preventive
tool. Our client was later ascribed
a compensation, which was twice as
much that is 300 thousand crowns.
We have reached an extrajudicial
settlement for an unlawful sterilization
of our client. A part of
the settlement is besides a financial
compensation also an admittance of
error from the Czech government. The
government should discuss a proposal
for a compensation of all unlawfully
sterilized women, on which the League
participated and which has already
been approved by the Government
Committee for Human Rights.
author: ISIFA

author: ISIFA
We have achieved two very significant
successes at the European Court
for Human Rights. Both cases were
ruled as violations of European Convention
on Human Rights and both were
ascribed a compensation of 20.000
Euros. The rulings also helped to change
the unsatisfactory legal statutes in the
Czech Republic.
The case of Mr Bureš concerned an unlawful
chaining and it was historically
the first time the Czech Republic was
condemned for humiliating treatment.
In the second ruling in the case of Mr
Sýkora, the court criticized the process
of legal incapability and placing
people under guardianship into
clinics on the sole basis of guardian’s
consent.
We have trained more than 500
social workers and guardians in the
area of providing social services and
legal capability.
We have contributed to an overall
improvement of the involuntary
hospitalization process. Thanks
to participation in a work group at
the Ministry of Justice we have managed
to push through a number of
suggestions into the civil court order
amendment.
We have finished methodology for
judges, lawyers and psychiatric clinics
and a flyer for their patients concerning
involuntary hospitalization.
Materials are available on Ministry’s
webpage.
We have presented an analysis of
Czech and international legislature
on the people’s with a disability
right to work. In cooperation with
Cinetik Studio we filmed a documentary
Ploty, which surveys the situation
in the Czech Republic, Great Britain,
Finland and the Netherlands.
handicapped persons’ rights

human rights issues in judiciary
We gave publicity to cases of a
possible abuse of defamation as
criminal offence.
We followed the case of Mr. and Mrs.
Lubovy, who alerted authorities for
a possible abuse of children in Novy
Jicin childrens’ home and later had to
face a law suit and were accused of
causing defamation.
We also drew attention to the case of
Mr. Flekal, who complained about the
policemen and was then accused of
a false accusation despite the fact that
there was no proof of deliberate false
accusation.
In two cases we challenged the six
months time limit to apply for a
compensation for an unlawful state
intervention into personal freedom
or human dignity.
According to us this limit is extremely
short in comparison with the three
year limit for cases where in similar
cases someone else than the state is
responsible.
We have created a new thematic
webpage www.ferovajustice.cz.
This page provides information on
how to defend oneself if one is aggrieved
by an action or inaction of the
authorities or judges. The visitors will
also be advised with finding a free
legal help.
We have published an analysis
pointing at issues of the current
system of compensation for civilians
aggrieved by an unlawful court
decision or authority or an erroneous
legal proceeding.
author: ISIFA

author: ISIFA
We represented parents of physically
handicapped Erik, who we believe
is being discriminated, as the
financing of a pedagogic assistant
was not sufficient.
We filed a complaint to the ombudsman
and an administrative action to
a regional court. The court rejected the
action and therefore we approached
the Highest Administrative Court with
a cassation complaint.
We produced 48 study cases focused
on pupils with special education
needs.
These will help schools and parents
with integration and education of
children with a similar story.
We have awarded five more schools
with the Fair School certificate for
their effort and progress towards
more inclusive environment.
In total there are 23 and another 20
schools are interested in obtaining the
certificate.
We organized an international
specialist conference called Fair Generation
2013, whose goal was to
start cooperation between schools
and the Ministry of Education in the
area of inclusive education.
The event was organized on the fifth
anniversary of the ruling of the European
Court on Human Rights in case
of D.H. and others against the Czech
Republic, in which the Strasbourg
court condemned the Czech Republic
for discrimination of the Roma people
in education.
We organized an international
competition called Focused on Tolerance.
Pupils from the Czech Republic and
the United States were filming short
videos about what the attitude is like
in their communities towards people
who are different. 44 film teams from
27 Czech schools and the USA entered
the competition.
fair school

fair childhood
The Constitutional Court chose
a guardian for a 16 year old boy,
whose parents were not able to
agree on the terms of mutual contact
for years. The court stated that
common courts were not sufficiently
respecting opinion of the child and
the proceedings were simplified into
finding faults on the side of the mother
or the father. The case was dragging on
for nearly ten years – the case first reached
court when the boy was seven.
We opened a new and neglected
topic – childrens’ rights (offenders)
younger than 15 years in criminal
proceedings. The police can interrogate
children without parents or
a solicitor only with the supervision of
a social worker. However, for adolescents
over 15 years and in some
cases even for adults the state provides
a solicitor automatically. In one of the
cases, which we are looking into, we
filed a constitutional complaint.
We cooperate with the Palacky
University Law School and the Pro
Bono alliance in the project of a free
law clinic for families with endange-
red children. Our goal is to increase
availability of quality, professional and
free legal counseling.
We are striving to prefer long term
cooperation with endangered families
to short term and often short
sighted solutions in the form of
removing children and putting
them into an institutional care.
Therefore in year 2012 we focused
predominantly on lobbying for the
new amendment to the social children
protection law, which has come
into effect in January 2013.
author: ISIFA

The European Court on Human
Rights stated in our case of Mr. Pecha
for the first time in history that
Czech authorities violated the right
to life. According to the Court the
authorities did not sufficiently investigate
circumstances of a young Roma
man, who died after an 8 meters fall
from a Brno police station. From the
very beginning the authorities considered
suicide as the only possible
cause of death.
Today more than ten years after the
event it is not possible to figure out
what exactly happened at the police
station. A number of errors during the
investigation do not make the police
version any more trustworthy. The
Court granted the aggrieved family
half million crown compensation.
We continued monitoring activities
of the newly established General Inspectorate
of Security Forces, which
has been from year 2012 investiga-
author: KIVA FOTO
ting criminal offences committed
by the police. Even though we supported
the establishment of this institution
for a long time, the expectations
were not met due to the personnel
choices. From the bigger part the new
independent institution is made up
of the old police inspection staff. On
some cases of police violence we have
verified that the inspection deliberately
refuses to investigate.
We have launched a new thematic
webpage www.ferovapolicie.cz.
It brings concise and organized information
on the rights and duties
of citizens meeting policemen and
police officers. Visitors can also find
a procedure how to defend themselves
if the police act unlawfully.
abuse of police power

the people of the league – the club of friends
The People of the League is a club of friends and supporters of the League of
Human Rights who by regular support have helped us to advocate human rights
and to work on improvement of life in the Czech Republic.
The members of the club are invited to exciting social and sport events; every month
we prepare a fresh portion of information about the League in our electronic
newsletter “We cheer for justice”, twice a year they receive theme specific EXTRA
League newspaper, an annual report and other exciting bonuses.
In March we organized for our supporters and partners a theatrical performance The
Vagina Monologue in HaDivadlo in Brno. At the end of June we invited them to our
beneficial tournament in five-a-side football called The League Cup. The second
year of the tournament raised 250 thousand crowns, which will enable running
of our free law clinic for patients for a period of six months.
In December we organized for our friends in Art cinema in Brno a premiere of the
film Ploty – a story of one life step – on employing people with a handicap. Our
supporters also participated in an award ceremony of our student competition Human
Rights Thesis and Human Rights Moot Court in the Sunset restaurant in Brno.
They could talk not only to us, but also to a senator Eliška Wagnerová or the Highest
Administrative Court judge Kateřina Šimáčková.
Do you want to improve the state of human rights in our country?
Join us at www.lidiligy.cz.
author: League archive
“The League of Human Rights is a system
defender of rights of those weakest
groups and persons, who find themselves
in a situation, in which their freedom
is wholly put into disposal of public
power. Yet the interests of these persons
are entirely exterior to the interests of
the majority society even though it concerns
problems characterizing the level
of humanity of the whole society, often
it even concerns human dignity, on
which our constitutional order is built.
Well done, League, thank you.”
Eliška Wagenerová
subscribe for our e-magazin

publications project
In April we published our analysis Influence
of Pharmaceutical Companies,
Advertisement and Vaccination. It provoked
a great interest in the expert public
and the association of pharmaceutical
industry issued their own press release.
In May we published Manual for
Pediatricians, which should make orientation
in legal issues easier for them.
These issues include informed consent
or refusal of care. The manual also provides
help on effective communication.
We finished Methodology for Judges,
Solicitors and Psychiatric clinics
concerning procedure of involuntary
hospitalization and a flyer for patients
with information on their rights. Both
documents are available on the Ministry
of Justice webpage.
We introduced analysis on Employing
People with a Handicap and Transformation
of Social Services. It maps
the legislative changes from 2012 and
brings information on practice abroad.
anyone can be a hero
In the second half of the year we launched a new project Anyone Can Be a Hero in
cooperation with the NESEhnutí organization. The aim of the project is to inspire and
motivate to a greater civil engagement through examples of good practice.
We collected stories of 105 heroes during the fall and the winter, who were nominated
by the public and non-profit organizations. The patrons of the project are
for example catholic priest Tomáš Halík, journalist Ludmila Rakušanová or music
duo Čokovoko. At the beginning of year 2013 an expert committee will select ten
finalists from which then the public will choose the winner.
A part of this extensive project, which concludes in the fall 2013, is also media campaign
“Don’t be a loser, be a hero” a guide for an engaged citizen, a series of exhibits
and discussion events, weekend workshops, e-learning and counseling for everyone
who wants to actively engage in defending their rights.
www.hrdinou.cz
author: ISIFA

OSF and OSI
28 %
Foundation
Partnerství and
Irish Council
1 %
US Embassy
3 %
CEE Trust
5 %
income
10 137 051
own
resources
8 %
financial
gift
1 %
MDAC
(Mental Diasability
Advocacy Center)
5 %
EU and state
subsidies
49 %
expert financial
services, translations,
interpretation
16 %
legal
services
9 %
others
2 %
fair
school
27 %
anyone can
be a hero
9 %
imprint, print,
publication,
propagation
4 % communication,
travelling
expenses
5 %
social and health
insurance
13 %
health
7 %
expenses
10 099 258
rights of people
with a handicap
28 %
judicial
and police
21 %
fair
childhood
8 %
operating costs
and material
expenses,
literature
4 %
energy,
rent and
repairs
5 %
salaries,
contract for
services
42 %
author: ISIFA

contacts
Burešova 6, 602 00 Brno
tel.: +420 545 210 446
fax: +420 545 240 012
e-mail: brno@llp.cz
www.llp.cz
www.llpvision.cz
www.lidiligy.cz
www.ferovaskola.cz
www.ferovanemocnice.cz
www.ferovapolicie.cz
www.ferovajustice.cz
www.ferovamedia.cz
author: League archive
You can find us on Facebook
facebook.com/liga.lidskych.prav
.........................................................
The League of Human Rights © 2013
editor ang graphic: Dan Petrucha
translation: Jolana Venenyová
Lucie Attkins
Jitka Bartošová
Martin Bartoš
Štěpánka Bibrová
Klára Částečková
Čokovoko
Tobi Manikin-Collett
Tomáš Halík
Pavel Hamřík
Veronika Helferová
Kamila Holoubková
Tereza Hrubá
Robert Cholenský
Zuzana Kameníková
Vít Klusák
Tomáš Kocourek
Michal Kolínek
Michaela Kopalová
Jiří Kopal
Radovan Kramář
Olga Kusá
Klára Lukášová
Zuzana Melcrová
Ondřej Moravec
Pavlína Navrátilová
Iveta Němečková
Jiří Novák
Monika Pacalová
Veronika Pejchalová
Josef Piher
Michal Pliska
Nikola Poláčková
Pavla Polechová
Marta Polešovská
Lenka Popovičová
Dominika Prinzová
Eva Pulkrtová
Ludmila Rakušanová
Zuzana Révezsová
Jan Sokol
Jan Scheuer
Pavel Sláma
Saša Stankov
Jitka Straková
thanks to
Luboš Šanoba
Tereza Šíblová
Kateřina Šimáčková
Jitka Šmídová
Alena Švaříčková
Hanka Švejdová
Maxim Tomoszek
Adéla Tukhi
Lenka Vavrušová
Jolana Venenyová
Tomáš Vojtíšek
Eliška Wagnerová
Eliška Veselá
Roman Zmrzlý
and companies
AVG, Tiskárna Didot,
GE Money Bank, ISIFA,
Špondr CMS,
Lakkis Toner Servis,
Sunset restaurant,
Knihovnička.cz, Deník
…and to all members of of the league club

2,5 mil. kč
compensation for
our clients
+ 70 %
of fan activity
on Facebook
240
quotations
in media
36
press
releases
180.000
visitors of the
online counseling
+ 40 %
newsletter
subscriptions