The City of Prague has won a legal battle with the Arts and Theatre Institute. The parties argued about ownership rights to properties in Celetná Street, one of which hosts Divadlo v Celetné theatre. This is one of a series of lawsuits in which Prague has recently prevailed, another being, for instance, an ownership dispute over the Lesser Czernin Palace. The lawsuit has dragged on for nine years.

“We have prevailed after complicated and protracted court proceedings. We have secured significant real property for the City of Prague. I am extremely happy for the victory and would like to thank all those who have helped to achieve it,” says City Councilor Jan Chabr who is responsible for city asset management.

“The case was complicated because accepted interpretations of the relevant provisions of the Act No. 172/1991 have changed over time, in particular legal opinion on the conditions for transferring assets to municipal ownership.  An important aspect was a ruling by the court of appeal on the costs incurred by the parties, finding them appropriate with respect to the complicated nature of ownership transfer under the aforementioned law. Prague will receive CZK 69,311 in total for both court proceedings, which can be seen as a major success, considering the predominant opinion of courts on costs incurred by statutory towns in legal disputes. By this, the courts acknowledged the complicated nature of the case,” notes Světlana Semrádová Zvolánková who represented the city in the protracted lawsuit.

Prague’s property ownership disputes arising from the restitution process are typically extremely demanding to prepare, requiring detailed diligent search for relevant documents in the archives, often more than 80 years back.

“In this particular case, Prague based its claim on the original Ruling on Confiscated Real Property dating from 1949, under which ownership interests were transferred to the City of Prague. As in other similar disputes, this document alone was not considered as a sufficiently convincing evidence to support Prague’s ownership claim, which affected the length of the lawsuit. However, Prague has eventually prevailed,” adds Jan Rak, the Director of Prague City Hall’s Asset Management Department.

foto. zdroj wikipedie