Liga lidských práv


Legislative and Legal Aid Health

Help us achieve vaccination freedom in the Czech Republic ❤

System of mandatory vaccination in the Czech Republic disproportionately interferes with the rights of the children to education, the rights of the parents to care for their children, to have their own opinion, rights to conviction and conscience. It also interferes with the right of the parents to act in the best interest of their children, and also with the right of the families to the protection of private life. We represented several clients whose cases, after years of disputes, came in front of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights. Help us convince judges in Strasbourg that parents in the Czech Republic should have the right to free choice, which is common in most western EU countries.

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We will use the funds to cover the expenses of:

  • the work of a lawyer in the joint representation of all applicants - writing a summary statement, preparation of an oral speech at a court hearing, communication with the court and with domestic and foreign partners - costs approx. EUR 1.875
  • professional translator of legal English for the translation of a written statement, its attachments and oral presentation - costs approx. EUR 3.000
  • participation of the legal team in the hearing of Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg on 1st July 2020 (travel and accommodation) - costs approx. EUR 1.125
  • organizational and other activities (travel organization, media coverage, providing photo documentation, etc.) - costs about EUR 750
The court  give judgment on the applications of six applicants - Czech nationals. The League of Human Rights filed applications for two of them (see details below), and we cooperate with the lawyers of the other applicants.

Our main arguments are as follows: 

 
  • Denying the access of the children to preschool education cannot be the punishment for the child not being fully vaccinated. Any restrictions on the access of the child to education resulting from the protection of public health must be convincingly reasoned and cannot be arbitrary. 
  • Despite the individual member states having a wide margin of appreciation in the matter of health care system including the vaccination system, such a system may not entirely ignore the right to freedom of thought and conscience. On the contrary, it must take regard and cord weight to such a right, and it must enable some exemptions based on this right. Such a system cannot and may not force people to act contrary to their conscience and against the best interest of the child.
  • Apart from that the vaccination policy must include and reflect respect to the right to freedom of thought and conscience, it must be transparent, well reasoned, proportionate, without the influence of persons who are in conflict of interest, and last but not least, it must include fair satisfaction for those who suffer harm to their health. 

The gravest errors on the side of the government are the following ones:

 
  • Vaccinations are introduced as mandatory and accordingly, repressive measures are adopted in a non-transparent manner, without sufficient reasoning, disproportionately and irrationally, with involvement and influence of people who share vested interests in the matter and are in a massive conflict of interest. 
  • Despite one of the chambers of the constitutional court of the Czech Republic having adjudicating an exemption from the blanket mandatory vaccination policy on the grounds of freedom of thought and conscience, the applicants were not given an opportunity of such an exemption. 
  • In the case of harm to persons’ health originating as a result of mandatory vaccination even after the recent adoption of the compensation bill, the right to just satisfaction of the harm is not guaranteed.
In the first case, we represent a father who was fined in 2003 for not vaccinating his teenage children against polio, hepatitis B and tetanus. In his case, the Constitutional Court concluded that there must be an exception to compulsory vaccination on the grounds of his parents' religious beliefs, but did not recognize that his right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion would be affected by the fine.

In the second case, we represent a boy who was not admitted to pre-school education at two kindergartens in the place of residence due to incomplete vaccination. His parents with a university degree in biology, after careful consideration, chose an individual vaccination calendar for their child and had him vaccinated only against the diseases they considered the most serious - diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio and hemophilic infections. We consider the non-admission of a child to kindergarten to be discriminatory.

For more information see:

Thank you for your support. We believe that with your help we can change the system.

The case is being dealt with by lawyer Zuzana Candigliota. If you have any questions about this campaign, write to dan.petrucha@llp.cz.
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Posílám, co teď mohu a taky přeji hodně sil.
Modlím se za moudrost vesmíru a moudrost těch, kteří za nás všechny budou ve Štrasburku bojovat.
M.

Markéta Vidnerová

Držím nám všem pěsti, abychom se konečně dočkali svobody v rozhodování v otázce očkování a aby skončil totalitní a represivní přístup státu.

Terezie Hettová
CZK 200