The government supported the concept of heritage care, the law is expected

Prague - The plan of Minister Daniel Herman (KDU-ČSL) on how the state should care for its cultural heritage in the next four years was supported by the government today. The cabinet spokesman Martin Ayrer informed about it on Twitter. The concept of heritage care for the years 2017 to 2020 builds on previous similar materials, but primarily depends on whether the proposed and long-awaited new heritage law can be approved. Currently, it is in the House of Representatives, and its effectiveness is expected from the beginning of 2018.

The new heritage law is one of the key promises of the government in the area of culture. It has been awaited for over a quarter of a century, and the proposal has many critics. Never before in the post-revolution period, associated among other things with changes in property relations, which is one of the important aspects of heritage care, has the preparation of such a law progressed this far. The law is also expected to protect objects that are not monuments but are located in heritage areas. It should also allow their owners to receive support from the state for their care. According to the authors of the law from the Ministry of Culture, it should also more strictly penalize neglect of care for monuments.

According to the proposed report, the priority goals of the heritage care concept include greater interconnectedness and openness of the field both internally and externally to the public, as well as the demand for legal certainty, clarity, and transparency regarding the protection of cultural monuments. There should also be a continuation in the revision and correction of some persistent inaccuracies in the Central Register of Cultural Monuments of the Czech Republic. Deficiencies in the monument list can lead to problems, for instance, when changing the owner of a monument - a different regime applies for the sale of artistic items if they are declared as monuments.

At the beginning of December, the House supported the bill in the first round of approval, despite the opposition's attempts to reject or return the proposal to the government for revision. The proposal has many critics even among heritage professionals and industry associations. Against the version of the law are, for example, the Czech Chamber of Architects and the Association for the Protection and Development of Cultural Heritage (ASORKD).

It was also criticized by the Association of Professional Workers in Heritage Care, which states that the proposal reduces the scope of heritage protection, does not define the protection of tangible cultural heritage as a public interest, and does not bring the desired systemic changes. According to ASORKD, the bill does not protect the most valuable and at the same time the most endangered part of domestic cultural heritage - historic towns. The Ministry mostly rejects the criticisms, claiming that the critics did not understand the law.