The Archdiocese has filed a constitutional complaint in the dispute over the Palm Garden

Brno/Olomouc – The Archdiocese of Olomouc has filed a constitutional complaint in the dispute over the Flower Garden in Kroměříž, a UNESCO World Heritage site. According to a final ruling, the garden is to remain in state ownership. The archdiocese unsuccessfully requested its return as part of church restitution. The filing of the constitutional complaint is evident from judicial databases, and the spokesperson for the archdiocese, Jiří Gračka, confirmed this step today to ČTK.

"We have also utilized this last opportunity within the Czech legal framework to fulfill our role as good stewards, as we feel a significant and serious responsibility for the centuries-old property of the bishops of Olomouc. We want to take advantage of all available options to ensure that we have truly done everything in our power for this role," Gračka told ČTK. "We want an independent institution to then decide, even in the highest instance, whether our claim is justified or not," he added.

The archdiocese asserted in its lawsuit that the garden forms a functional whole with the Kroměříž Castle and the Podzámecká Garden. The church acquired them as part of a property settlement in 2015. However, according to the ruling, the Flower Garden can function independently, and its return to the church is therefore not applicable.

Kroměříž Castle and both gardens were inscribed on the UNESCO list together. The archdiocese previously stated that this is one of the pieces of evidence of their functional connection. Through its legal representatives, it also stated that the gardens and the castle have always had the same owner in the past, first the church and then the state.

The archdiocese's appeal was recently rejected by the Supreme Court. It pointed to the wording of the law on property settlements with churches, which supposedly does not allow for the handing over of the garden.

"Courts cannot adjust the notion of remedy for property injustices chosen by the political representation according to their own ideas of the desired level of compensation for the harm that churches and religious societies suffered in the past," the Supreme Court's decision states. The court also did not agree with the assertion that the garden, which once served for the relaxation and rest of church dignitaries, could be subsumed under the term "residence of clergy."

In the garden, which is one of the tourist attractions of Kroměříž, work completed in 2014 cost 230 million korunas and was co-financed by European funds. Thanks to this, part of it returned to its 17th-century form, when it was founded by Olomouc Bishop Karl of Liechtenstein-Castelkorn.