The Ministry of Culture has presented the anticipated draft of the heritage conservation law

Prague - The Ministry of Culture aims to strengthen the legal certainties of owners and other entities involved in the preservation of historical monuments or to make the system of heritage care more flexible and efficient with the proposed heritage law. It defines the rights and obligations of owners of cultural monuments and properties in heritage areas, and it also introduces a new compensation system. The law also establishes criteria for providing subsidies from the state budget. This follows from the submission report, whose comment process ended last week. The proposal was criticized by the Czech Chamber of Architects and the opposition Pirates, who prepared their own amendment.

According to the government proposal, the state could now compensate property owners in heritage areas for costs incurred due to restrictions on their property rights. The current form of the law does not allow this; only owners of properties declared as cultural monuments are entitled to direct state funding. The ministry anticipates increased demands on the state budget due to this change, estimating that it will be necessary to strengthen the budget of the Ministry of Culture by approximately 320 million annually with a permanent impact starting from 2022.

The law also introduces tools to respond to the failure of an owner of a cultural monument or property in a heritage area to fulfill their obligations by imposing corrective measures. The proposal also strengthens the powers of the Heritage Inspectorate, through which the ministry conducts oversight activities. It also allows for the uniform declaration of heritage areas by means of a general provision, thereby increasing public participation in its definition, according to the ministry. Judicial review would also be possible under the new proposal, the ministry states in the submission report.

According to the ministry, the current form of the law imposes a number of restrictions on property owners in heritage areas without the possibility of providing compensation from state resources, even though the properties are not cultural monuments. "The existing legal framework does not address situations where a cultural monument is endangered or damaged not by the unlawful actions of the owner (whether by action or inaction), but by the inaction of a third party (failure to maintain a neighboring property, etc.)," the office criticized the current law. It also points out the excessive administrative burden in restoring the heritage fund.

According to the Czech Chamber of Architects, the proposal should be amended. For example, it pointed out the imbalance between the rights and obligations of property owners and that the proposal focuses only on the maintenance and conservation of protected heritage objects. The chamber does not like that the owner of a protected heritage building is not entitled to financial aid in case of its repair.

According to the server E15.cz, the National Heritage Institute also disagrees with the proposal. "I don't know what the brief was, but the weakening of the role of the National Heritage Institute is evident," said the institute’s general director Naděžda Goryczková to the server. According to her, the institute should not now comment on all monuments and interventions in heritage areas as it has previously, but only on a selected part, E15 reported.

The Pirates want to introduce their own amendment to the law on state heritage care in the fall. According to them, the ministry's proposal has several deficiencies. Binding opinions on construction projects should be issued by the current National Heritage Institute, transformed into a State Heritage Office, according to their plan. Currently, the institute's opinions are only advisory, which, according to MP Lukáš Černohorský, can lead to possible damage or even demolition of monuments.

In the previous electoral period, the then Minister Daniel Herman (KDU-ČSL) encountered resistance in the Chamber of Deputies with a proposal for a new heritage law. Some MPs criticized the draft, among other things, for not bringing about systemic changes.