The ministry will not review the rejection of the protection of the Havířov station

Prague - Minister of Culture Daniel Herman (KDU-ČSL) will not review the decision of his office, which refused to declare the train station in Havířov a cultural monument. The Brussels-style building, previously threatened with demolition, will thus not enjoy heritage protection. The Heritage Association, which submitted a request for a review of the decision, today filed a criminal complaint due to the proceedings surrounding the station. CTK was informed of this by its vice-president Martin Kadrman.
    The heritage department of the ministry decided last year that the building would not be a monument, and Herman confirmed this decision during the appeal process this year. However, the appeal committee stated that the decision of the heritage department was illegal. The ministry, among other things, did not obtain key documents for its decision in order to evaluate their actual content. It sufficiently did not refute arguments in favor of heritage protection. Therefore, the committee proposed the initiation of a review process to examine the degree of illegality of the contested decision of the Ministry of Culture.
    According to the Association for the Protection and Development of Cultural Heritage of the Czech Republic (ASORKD), it is striking that the minister did not address the findings of the appeal committee at all. Ministry spokesperson Simona Cigánková, however, says that the committee is merely an advisory body to the minister.
    "He is not bound by its recommendations, whether regarding the ruling or the reasoning of the decision, and he can, as has repeatedly happened in the past, decide otherwise," she told CTK earlier. The National Heritage Institute also submitted a request for a review - both, however, were dismissed by the ministry, as a review can be initiated within two months of the decision being issued, and both requests were therefore filed too late. However, ASORKD states that the ministry should have initiated the review itself - precisely at the request of the committee.
    "The appeal committee has the status of an advisory body, but if there is reasonable grounds to believe that the decision is illegal (...), the relevant administrative body (...) has an obligation to initiate a review process ex officio, no later than two months from the day it learned of the reason for initiating the review," the association states in its criminal complaint. It suspects the commission of the crime of "neglecting the duties of a public official through negligence."
    "The Minister of Culture, by his decision of February 13, 2015, properly, in accordance with the law, and in great detail explained the reasons why he would not initiate a review process. The deadline for the review was not breached, as the association merely repeated the reasons that the minister had already thoroughly addressed in his decision," said the spokesperson.
    According to the mayor of Havířov, Daniel Pawlas (KSČM), the current events surrounding the station do not have fundamental significance for the city. "To be honest, it has no fundamental significance for us at this moment. I have long said that the problem should have been addressed much earlier when the construction of the new terminal was current. By starting this tug-of-war, everything came to a halt, and practically the money intended for the terminal construction went to some other projects," Pawlas stated.
    The Ministry of Culture repeatedly made decisions regarding the building by architect Josef Hrejsemnou, which experts consider a unique example of architecture from the Brussels style period, and always in contradiction to the opinions of experts. Czech Railways wanted to demolish the station, planning to build a transport terminal in its place. However, at the end of last year, the city stepped back from the terminal construction, which was a joint project of Czech Railways and Havířov.