Czech court rules fence in Maticni did not harm resident's honour

The Prague High Court has ruled that the building of a ceramic fence in Usti nad Labem’s Maticni street in 1999 did not harm the honour and human dignity of Gizela Lackova who lived there, Lackova’s lawyer David Strupek told CTK today.

Lackova sued the authorities of Usti nad Labem and its neighbourhood Nestemice where Maticni street lies and it took the courts eight years to resolve the case.

Nestemice town hall spokeswoman Petra Tacheci confirmed the information to CTK today.

Lackova demanded that the authorities publish an apology in the press and give her 100,000 crowns in compensation.
In 2001, her complaint was rejected by the Regional Court but Lackova’s defence lawyer appealed the verdict.

Strupek told CTK today that in the past years the case had been dealt with alternately by the Prague High Court and the Supreme Court that repeatedly returned it to the Prague judges.

The plaintiff finally decided to give her complaint up and the case has thus been closed, Strupek said.

The court verdict took effect on July 18. According to it, Lackova will not receive any apology or money. On the contrary, she will have to pay 120,000 crowns to the authorities to cover the court expenses.

Lackova told CTK today that she did not have 120,000 crowns and that her family thus hoped that the organisations advocating Romany rights would help her if she were really to pay the sum.

The Nestemice authorities started to build the fence in Maticni street in October 1999. They said they thus wanted to protect the owners of private houses who repeatedly complained about the noise and disorder made by the residents of flats for rent defaulters on the other side of Maticni street.

However, the residents of the flats, mostly Romanies, protested against the fence, along with Czech and foreign human rights activists as they viewed it as an expression of racism.

The ceramic fence was dismantled after six weeks.

The case was closed when the owners of private houses left the locality. The Usti nad Labem town hall bought their houses from them and it also received money from the government to finance the dismantling of the fence.