<div>Klub Za starou Prahu criticizes the proposal for the heritage conservation law</div>

Prague - The strengthening of self-governance at the expense of professional care and the reduction of the number of monuments could be brought about by the new monument law, according to the Club for Old Prague. The club also criticizes the fact that the draft currently considers excluding buildings by living authors from the list of monuments. The proposal of parts of the law, which is set to replace the regulation from 1987, is also criticized by other interested groups, such as restorers and the monument conservationists themselves.
    The Club for Old Prague brings together historians, architects, urban planners, and also professional monument conservationists who strive to preserve the cultural wealth of the capital city. The Ministry of Culture, which is presenting the law, states that its form may still change. After government approval, Minister Václav Jehlička plans to present it to Parliament by March 31, 2009.
    "If the law were enacted in the proposed form, monument care in the Czech Republic would significantly worsen, and these are not cosmetic changes; it would be a systemic deterioration. Once the professional aspect is weakened, it will be difficult to regain it," said club secretary Richard Biegel to reporters today.
    The proposed law does not abolish the criticized so-called dual track of monument care, which is the situation where professional staff of the National Heritage Institute (NPÚ) issue advisory opinions that the executive body of monument care, namely municipalities, do not have to follow. According to Biegel, self-governance would newly determine which interventions on monuments the NPÚ should comment on. "The NPÚ will become a mere statistic that no one will ask about," he adds, fearing that monument protection would suffer as a result of this step.
    However, the Ministry states that it wants to adapt to the needs of monument owners, for whom granting repairs or other changes often becomes a lengthy procedure; according to the ministry, the NPÚ is overwhelmed with tasks, and the goal of the law is to reduce the number of interventions that the institute must comment on.
    The question of declaring a living author's work as a monument is unclear even among those who participated in the preparation of the law. Those in favor of not declaring these buildings argue based on copyright law - they claim that it sufficiently protects buildings. However, the Club for Old Prague believes this is not enough. "The copyright law allows the author to sue in case of violation - which architect will sue?" says Biegel.
    According to him, the insufficient protection of younger buildings has resulted in almost no monuments of the today-valued so-called Brussels style existing in Prague.
    The club's concerns about the reduction in the number of monuments are based on the ministry's intention to revise the entire list of cultural monuments, which includes tens of thousands of items, within ten years. The club believes that such a quantity cannot be re-declared in an administrative process - some restored monuments have several owners, all of whom are participants in the proceedings. The ministry claims it will manage this and will conduct a simplified, more or less formal procedure.