The Regional Court in Hradec Králové is a court based in Hradec Králové, which as an appellate instance reviews decisions of the district courts within its jurisdiction, including the District Court in Semily.[2][3]
Ruling in the Walderode restitution case
On 13 October 2026, the Regional Court overturned a judgment of the District Court in Semily in the restitution case of the Walderode family and remanded the matter for a new hearing.[1][2][3] According to the court, the lawsuit needs to be amended to reflect the current status of more than a thousand disputed plots of land, meaning that the cadastral office must prepare an identification of the parcels and compare their status from 1945 with their status in 1991 and today.[1][2][4] The plaintiff Johanna Kammerlander's attorney, Roman Heyduk, stated that identifying the thousand plots would take the cadastral office roughly a year.[1][2][4]
According to sources, the presiding judge of the appellate panel, Jan Rutsch, said the court based its decision on a ruling of the Constitutional Court from 19 September 2024, according to which the plaintiff's legal predecessor was issued a certificate of Czechoslovak citizenship on 16 December 1947 by the Ministry of the Interior, making the plaintiff a person entitled to a restitution claim.[1] The defendants in the proceedings include, among others, the town of Turnov, the National Heritage Institute, the Office for Government Representation in Property Affairs, and the state enterprise Lesy ČR, whose representatives had moved for the lawsuit to be dismissed.[1][2][4]
According to a report by the Czech News Agency, the Regional Court explicitly stated that the restitution claim is justified and that it would not revisit this question further; the case now returns to the District Court in Semily, which must assess the current designation of the plots and decide which of them can be returned and for which financial compensation is due.[2][3][4]
Chronology
- — The Regional Court in Hradec Králové overturned a decision of the District Court in Semily in the Walderode restitution case and remanded it for a new hearing, requiring a more precise identification of more than a thousand disputed plots of land. Novinky.cz Czech News Agency / České noviny
Pages linking here
Sources
- Novinky.cz — 13 October 2026
- ČTK / České noviny — 13 October 2026
- ČT24 — 13 October 2026
- Echo24 — 13 October 2026