The Constitutional Court building, formerly the Moravian Diet, 2009
The Constitutional Court building, formerly the Moravian Diet, 2009Photo: Kirk, 2009 · CC BY 2.5 · Wikimedia Commons

The Constitutional Court is a body that, in the Czech legal system, decides on constitutional complaints lodged against decisions of the ordinary courts. In October 2026 it rejected a woman's complaint in the dispute over lunar dust samples as manifestly unfounded, thereby definitively confirming that the samples belong to the Czech Academy of Sciences [1][2][3][4].*

The lunar dust dispute

The proceedings concerned small fragments of rock, minerals and glass obtained by the Soviet probes Luna 16, Luna 20 and Luna 24 between 1970 and 1976, kept in 15 glass ampoules and one plastic sample holder [1][2]. The material was received for scientific research from the Soviet side by the former Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, but after decades it turned up in the possession of the daughter of the scientist who had earlier worked with it [3]. The Academy of Sciences learned of this in 2020 in connection with an application for an export permit and filed a lawsuit for the return of the item [3]. The woman claimed that her mother had obtained the samples directly from Soviet colleagues and that the family had held them ever since as its own property, without the Academy missing them [1][3].

Decisions of the ordinary courts

The Prague 6 District Court ruled in favour of the Academy of Sciences first, followed by the Municipal Court in Prague; both courts concluded that the family must hand the samples over to the Academy [1][2]. The verdict was subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court as well [1][2]. According to Supreme Court spokeswoman Gabriela Tomíčková, the courts concluded on the basis of archival documents and witness testimony that the samples had always been handed to the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and not to specific persons, and they also stressed the exceptional nature of any donation of such rare material to a private person [1][2][4].

Decision of the Constitutional Court

In her constitutional complaint the woman argued that the factual and legal conclusions of the ordinary courts were in extreme conflict with the evidence presented, and claimed that her mother had held the samples for decades in the belief that they were her property [1][2][4]. The panel of the Constitutional Court with judge-rapporteur Martin Smolek, however, stated that the woman overlooks the coherent chain of reasoning of the ordinary courts, which was based mainly on contemporary documents titled "Act of Transfer of Lunar Dust Samples" from 1971, 1973 and 1977, in which the receiving persons, including the complainant's mother, were designated as authorised representatives of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences [3]. The court stated that this is a globally unique object of judicial proceedings, which from a legal point of view nevertheless does not require special effort on the part of the courts, and it rejected the complaint as manifestly unfounded [1][2][4].

Chronology

  • — The Constitutional Court ruled that lunar dust samples from the 1970s remain the property of the Czech Academy of Sciences. → iDNES.cz Pražský deník

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Sources

  1. iDNES.cz — 1 October 2026
  2. Pražský deník — 1 October 2026
  3. Novinky.cz — 1 October 2026
  4. Blesk.cz — 1 October 2026