J.D. and Others v Czech Republic

13 December 2019

The ERRC represented six Romani women from the Czech Republic who were victims of forced sterilisation. The complaint was about the fact that they did not have access to a remedy. Under Czech law, there is no specific remedy for survivors of forced sterilisation to seek compensation. They have to bring a general civil law claim for damages, which has a three-year statute of limitations. The six women had been unable to comply with this deadline, and we argued that they should not have to. We said that there should be a right to a specific, special remedy for survivors of forced sterilisation.

The Committee disagreed and found the complaint inadmissible. They said that the six women had failed to exhaust domestic remedies. They should have tried to bring their case to the domestic courts despite the three-year statute of limitations, before turning to the Committee. Because they had not done so, the Committee found that they had not “exhausted domestic remedies”, which is required before complaining to an international human rights body.

The decision can be found here.